


i cover myself with you (again, again)

by chakyeons



Category: VIXX
Genre: Dubious Morality, M/M, Minor Violence, Mutual Pining, Perfume, and scentist, heavily inspired by the book perfume, heavy sapphic yearning undertones, taekwoon if you squint, taekwoon says acab irl but not in this story!, two kind of morally grey characters walk into a bar, yes i know this is mlm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:09:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23708920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chakyeons/pseuds/chakyeons
Summary: Jaehwan thinks he is at a part in his life where he can place himself into three categories: a perfumer, a chemist, and a man madly, deeply in love.Or, a story in which perfumer Jaehwan creates scents to get people to do his bidding. His apprentice, Sanghyuk, has been under their influence ever since they met, and, wow, how come Sanghyuk has never quite really been affected?
Relationships: Han Sanghyuk | Hyuk/Lee Jaehwan | Ken
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	i cover myself with you (again, again)

**Author's Note:**

> kind of iffy on how this turned out but uhh i started writing this back in september and i just forgot about it until a month ago or so? and i set a goal for myself to complete it for the edv anniversary (despite everything going on rn), so happy eau de 'verssary! unbeta'd, please excuse any typos! also yes, i know an actual aphrodisiac as a beverage isn't real, but this is fiction babey!!
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> rated M for:  
> -graphic violence (mild but still present)  
> -descriptions that depict body horror (also very mild)
> 
> [spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4cWVePWT2H1luyzocvrabT?si=l1brDcLuTb-oXYyS4eZEvQ)
> 
> for elle <3
> 
> (a very lovely friend made me this GORGEOUS edit please please [check it out](https://twitter.com/hakyeontrinity/status/1314295028856967170)!!! i'm in love ;;)

“Where do you want these, Jaehwan?”

Hot. It’s hot, _so hot_ , and Jaehwan can’t even blink open his eyes at the sound of approaching footsteps, a fluttering receipt, the crinkling of paper bags; the sounds cease all at once with the clink of glass bottles against his work table, where they have inevitably been set down. A deep sigh has his lips curling upwards, but it doesn’t last long. A bead of sweat trails from his hairline to his chin. He scowls.

Giggling. He still doesn’t open his eyes.

“Come on, hyung. Stop ignoring me.”

A new sound, accompanied by the almost overwhelming scent of strawberry cream and butter, but he can barely hear it over the sudden pounding of his heart; sweet and shamefully amorous. His eyes open on their own accord, but he doesn’t admit defeat, instead traces the almost nonexistent flaws in the high ceiling. There’s still a violet splatter from where they tried to mix his lavender substance with an unknown chemical in his stock. Neither of them were familiar with it and it showed, terribly, in the result of a shattered beaker (his _favorite one_ ) and bandages.

“ _Hyung_.”

The scent is right before his nose now, and his vision is blocked by a blurry, undefined shape; he’s spent too much time thinking to himself and he knows exactly what it is, anyway. He resists the urge to grab at the tanned, unmarred skin, its respective hands just beginning to form calluses from endless flower picking and expression, pushing citrus peels into smooth stone until the fingers are left numb and shaking. He merely grunts as a response, head lolling to the side. It’s too much.

“I got your favorite pastries. They were having a sale.”

Jaehwan huffs on a laugh, caving in. “No, they’re _your_ favorite.”

“And what about it?”

Jaehwan slowly lets his body drape forward, starting from his head and ending at his hips in one, languid line. He hears snickering. “My own apprentice, lying and deceiving me. What have I done to deserve this?”

“You forgot to clean the vials last night,” he hears, and then his apprentice’s voice grows muffled as he stuffs a pastry in his mouth. “I stayed up late.”

How grateful Jaehwan is for the heat now that his body flushes from head to toe, eyes growing wide and breath stuttering. How absolutely dismayed he is that he’s this affected from, from what? From _what_? The revelation that he has an apprentice that does his apprentice duties, that’s what.

But then. Then, it dawns upon him. He feels his heart stop, a jolt running up his spine and straightening him out for just a moment, lips parting on a silent gasp. He’d really, _really_ needed those vials today.

Shit.

“Oh,” Jaehwan says, a bit breathlessly, “Sanghyuk, you didn’t have-”

“Hyung, with all do respect….” Sanghyuk says, carelessly spilling crumbs on the table. He looks at them for a moment before shrugging. “It’s my job.”

“But- but I could’ve done it this morning, you didn’t-”

“My _God_ , hyung.”

Jaehwan shuts his mouth into a pout. Sanghyuk rolls his eyes but Jaehwwan swears to everything almighty he sees his eyes flicker to his lips for just a tiny moment. He counts it as a victory; Lord knows his aching heart deserves it.

“Anyway, here’s your indole and musk,” Sanghyuk says and gestures to the paper bag that is indeed on Jaehwan’s work table, slightly crumpled from where he’d been holding it. Jaehwan hums appreciatively and nods. Sanghyuk beams, and Jaehwan’s heart gives another few rapid _thump_ ’s.

“Great. Thanks, Hyuk-ah.”

“Yeah,” Sanghyuk says, already rushing to shove another pastry in his mouth. His lips curl into an even brighter smile, cheeks round and eyes twinkling. “It’s my day off, yeah? I’m gonna go out.”

The incessant, terrible thumping of Jaehwan’s heart slows to a dull drag as Sanghyuk’s words sink in; it is, in fact, his day off. Internally, he scolds himself for feeling his hope fall so easily. So, so incredibly easily. He doesn’t let himself show it, turning away and stretching. He feels his shirt riding up and promptly slaps his hands down over his stomach. Sanghyuk laughs.

“ _Shut it_ ,” Jaehwan hisses, but nods good naturedly. “Go. Off with you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“‘Kay,” Sanghyuk calls from halfway across the room. His messy, auburn hair is a stark contrast against the clinical nature of Jaehwan’s laboratory. He’s so tall he can reach the very highest shelves, now. Jaehwan fondly remembers when he still had to stand on his toes, about a year ago. It makes him smile.

“I left the last pastry for you,” is Sanghyuk’s goodbye as he shuts the heavy, metal door, footsteps blocked by its slam. Bottles shake on the shelves, but only the red ones closest to the door; they cease as soon as Jaehwan stands, hands placed on the table. He inhales, exhales, inhales, exhales- he feels like he’s shaking too, but is he? He lifts a hand, spreading his fingers. Not shaking. Good.

“He has cream on his lips,” Jaehwan mutters, breaths coming shallow, too shallow. He presses a hand against his chest, right above his heart. Miraculous how he can’t feel it pounding against his ribcage. “How did he not notice? Why didn’t I tell him, oh my God.”

A single drop of oil lands against empty glass, translucent yellow. It makes a little _plip_ . He shakes his head. Now’s not the time for… _this_ , whatever _this_ is.

Fingers itching to grab at the beaker, he resists; instead, he pushes himself away from his work table, eyeing the (freshly cleaned) vials resting on their rack. They’ve long since dried out, but Jaehwan still closes his eyes and lets his senses take over; he can smell the barest residual of ambroxide, pulling him deep into a velvet pool, tinged with a hint of amber. Another vial beside it contains the slightly salty aftertaste of caramelized sugar and vanilla. His brows furrow. It had taken him all day to get the sugary scent just right.

Sanghyuk didn’t know. He couldn’t have known, therefore it is not his fault. He could not have possibly known, because Jaehwan had never, ever let him into his lab whilst making these samples, not even once. As much as he loves having Sanghyuk around (maybe a little _too much_ ) he’s also too curious for his own good, as eager as an apprentice can be to their mentor. Always immaculately watching Jaehwan while he works, eyes flickering back and forth like he didn’t graduate from a high class perfumery school in _France_ , for God’s sake. It used to make Jaehwan flustered, to be watched so closely. Being scrutinized for error almost had him develop an insecurity complex once upon a time. Now, Sanghyuk’s attention makes him flush for an entirely different reason.

“Pull yourself together,” he says to himself, under his breath like he’s afraid of being heard, “and make your goddamn perfume.”

And with that, he spins around and tugs open the bottommost drawer of his cabinet with a flourish, bending down by the waist. He hums, not totally sure of the song but aware enough due to Sanghyuk and Hongbin’s constant listening to top 40s radio, hands shuffling through the contents with practiced ease. A folder here, a notebook there, two boxes of extra syringes, a wooden frame- ah, yes. As he stands he nudges the drawer closed with his foot, and grimaces when he sees that the baby pink paint job has started to chip. Good for Sanghyuk, bad for Jaehwan. When Sanghyuk had first seen the cabinet he’d blanched, violently, and ran into the corner of Jaehwan’s table like an idiot. It was like he’d never seen good taste before. Jaehwan scoffs to himself.

Pale fingers washed out by white lighting tap against a weathered, tattered book, bookmarked near the end of the script. Jaehwan frowns, inspecting his hands; just as his cabinet’s paint had chipped, so has his nail polish. Damn, and he’d only gotten it done, what, a week ago? Nevertheless, he still parts the book with careful hands, squinting. 

The text has weathered alongside the pages, and so the ink has started to run and bleed; Jaehwan is still amazed a scripture this old has held up for as long as it has. The only existing date is at the very front, on the second page. He knows because he’d stared at it for days on end, unable to believe it. He still doesn’t quite believe, if that makes it any better.

He sets his bookmark down along with the book, and curses when the pages bow away from the spine. At least it lays flat enough that he doesn’t have to grab anything to keep it open. But still, the aged nature of the pages he traces with the very tips of his fingers makes him think, puts his mind into overdrive. He could start thinking himself into a well again, deepen the spiral he’s already carved within himself, but. There isn’t any time left, he thinks, no, he _knows_. He has to do it and he has to do it soon.

He sighs, eyes glancing up at the title of the page for a moment before flickering down to the list of ingredients again, written in flowing, beautiful French cursive. He’s fluent just as Sanghyuk is, but this is enough to intimidate him; he’d never dare mar the pages with his own ink, though. The very thought of it makes him wince.

“Okay,” he whispers, already turning back around to gather his vials. They sit waiting for him, eager and patient. He grabs three, just to be safe. “Let’s do this.”

_Scent Number 67: L'odeur de tomber amoureux (the scent of love)._

❁

“Any spicy beef ramen left?”

A light flickers overhead and Sanghyuk’s eyes lose focus for a split second. To combat it he blinks, hard. His ears catch the sounds of coughing, the faint hum of a refrigerator, a slam of a glass door against rubber-coated porcelain. Sanghyuk pockets his phone and clutches at his elected drink with both hands, the chill of plastic blissful relief against his sweaty palms. 

“Aren’t you not supposed to eat spicy food? ‘Cause of perfuming and all that,” Hongbin calls to him from the other aisle, but Sanghyuk still hears him snickering and the crinkle of plastic. He grins.

“You underestimate my tolerance, Bean Boy.”

“I don’t think that’s the point,” Wonshik says to his left. Sanghyuk scowls at him and points at the stack of candy bars balancing on Wonshik’s hand.

“It would be a shame if those were to fall,” he says. Wonshik covers his findings protectively, arms coiled around them like a snake. Sanghyuk raises his hands in mock defeat.

“Don’t you dare,” Wonshik warns but Sanghyuk hears it more as a plea. Wonshik perks up, then, probably because Hongbin is back; Sangyhuk can almost see his eyes morph into little cartoon hearts. Whipped bastard.

“Ramen,” is all Hongbin says when he returns. The artificial light sculpts his features into a sharper, much more defined Hongbin, the one Sanghyuk is familiar with seeing in galleries and exhibitions that smell of bitter coffee and dust. This Hongbin’s eyes light up when he sees Wonshik protecting his candy, lips curling into a sweet smile he will _always_ deny, and he sighs lovingly; distractedly he holds out a pack of ramen for Sanghyuk. He almost groans with sweet relief. Wonshik gets that pinched look to his face that makes his mouth appear even smaller, which makes Sanghyuk laugh. Hongbin rolls his eyes.

“You’re gross,” he tells Sanghyuk. Wonshik agrees with a vehement nod. Sanghyuk shrugs and nods when the cashier beckons them forward, placing his drink and ramen on the counter.

“And?” Sanghyuk says. He gives them a snarky grin. Hongbin stares at him with feigned awe.

“You’re so annoying, it’s unbelievable,” he says. Sanghyuk flips him the bird from under the counter. He swipes his card through the machine and waltzes out of the way with his drink. Humidity clings to his skin from being so near the door but he ignores it and stuffs the receipt in his pocket, bouncing on his heels. He’s got to admit, it’s weird going from a summer of near-constant downpour in France to actually-constant humidity in South Korea, even though it’s September and the weather _should_ be getting more tolerable, in theory. And the days, they’re shorter here; he’d almost forgotten. It’s been a year though, so he’s used to it by now, but for the first few weeks he’d been Suffering.

“Let’s go,” Wonshik says when they stand in front of Sangyuk, twin grins spread across their faces. Sanghyuk nods.

“Yeah,” he agrees. He pushes the cool glass of the door open with one hand and holds it open for them, which grants him a sarcastic remark from Hongbin. Sanghyuk pays him no mind, instead focuses on his drink.

And so there they are, side by side, Sanghyuk cracking open a cold one with his boys. A tiny breeze carries over the open air courtyard and ends when they pass an escalator, just as Sanghyuk was getting comfortable. Damn. He takes a swig of his drink, not caring about how it drips down his neck in one, pink line- in fact, it only relieves him more.

A muttered “ _fuck yes_ ,” grabs his attention away from his drink and he peers up at Hongbin, who has sped up in the direction of their destination. Sanghyuk takes in its primary colors and retro style with mild interest; he’s only been to this arcade a few times before but it’s Hongbin and Wonshik’s favorite place like, _ever_. They have the few iterations of retro games he likes so it’s good in his books.

“They’ve got Project Diva Arcade now,” Wonshik says with a knowing grin. Sanghyuk gasps, eyes wide; a surge of excitement has him bounding right behind Hongbin, steps determined. _That’s_ what he’s talking about.

“ _This_ is what I’m talking about,” he says, about an hour later into playing, eyes burning and shoulders tense as he anticipates the next round of notes to press. They come at a rapid speed and he jams his hands over the illuminated buttons, his skin throbbing. Somewhere off to his left he hears someone clear their throat but it’s almost inaudible against the game’s intensely loud automated voices. He hopes it’s not the kid who’s been lingering behind him for ages now- the other machine is open, for God’s sake. Sanghyuk grunts and juts his shoulder out to prompt them to speak, already in a bad mood.

“Hey, I know you get, like, way too into this. We’re gonna head over to the DDR.”

“I will kill you in your sleep,” Sanghyuk hisses back at Wonshik, eyes wide and lips barely moving, “I will come into your room and strangle you until you can’t fucking breathe-”

“ _Okay_ , okay! Can I get you some water? Please say yes.”

“Water is for the weak,” Sanghyuk says. Wonshik makes a concerned noise but knows better than to press him. He resigns with what he assumes is a sigh.

“Uh. Okay, then, have fun with your animes.”

Sanghyuk chooses to ignore him further. Wonshik finally leaves, his silhouette passing through Sanghyuk’s peripheral vision like a lumbering ghost, all sulky and apprehensive. Personally, Sanghyuk doesn’t understand why, but he’s not going to follow him to find out.

Five songs later and Sanghyuk finally relents, unshed tears brimming at the corners of his positively _fried_ eyes. He rubs at them with the heel of his hand and blindly reaches for his drink, draining the rest of it in two giant gulps. When he backs away from the machine he notices a small party watching him, eyes wide. They look like high schoolers. Sanghyuk smiles at them and gestures to the game but they keep staring. One takes out his phone and snaps a quick picture. Sanghyuk scowls and leaves, turning on his heel with a prompt spin. Time to find Wonshik and Hongbin.

He finds them at the front of the arcade after throwing his drink into the recycling bin, Wonshik furiously vibrating from step-to-step and Hongbin leaning on the railings with the dopiest, most loving grin on his face. Sanghyuk almost gags right into a girl’s backpack, but catches himself when she throws him a weird look and slides out of his way. He nods in understanding.

“You two are disgusting,” he says to Hongbin when he’s close enough to be heard. Hongbin doesn’t even look at him.

“Oh yeah? That’s rich, coming from you.”

Wonshik curses and stumbles when he misses a new round of notes, arms flailing wildly. Hongbin steadies him, though not without a subtle grope to his ass. That’s why it takes Sanghyuk a little longer to process Hongbin’s words, but when he does, he whips his head back around to stare at him.

“What? What do you mean?”

This finally gets Hongbin to look at him. His big eyes are carefully innocent, face blank, lips smoothed out into a neutral line. Unfortunately for him, they’ve been friends long enough for Sanghyuk to know that’s his ‘I’m trying really hard not to laugh at you, you big, dumb idiot’ face.

“What, you don’t think we’ve noticed?” he starts, then pauses to think, eyes flickering to the side. “Maybe not ‘we.’ Wonshik isn’t… perceptive.”

“You think?” Sanghyuk says, then demands, “noticed _what_?”

Hongbin gives him another _look._ Sanghyuk gestures with his hands in a way not unlike Wonshik earlier.

“Stop being cryptic, what are you talking about?”

Hongbin picks at his nails, appearing bored. Sanghyuk wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him.

“You. You and Jaehwan-hyung.”

Sanghyuk almost blanches. His eyebrows raise on their own accord. Oh, _this_ one’s good.

“Are you kidding me? Hyung, he’s my mentor.”

“So?” Hongbin challenges with a raised eyebrow, and Sanghyuk notices that, to his dismay, Wonshik’s attention has been piqued. He neglects another round of extreme competitive vibrating in order to jump over the rails, landing almost right in between the two of them.

“What’s going on? What did I miss?”

“Everything,” Hongbin says, and then wrinkles his nose. “Ew, get away from me. You smell like sweat.”

“You like it,” Wonshik grins wolfishly and Sanghyuk groans, covering his eyes. Hongbin gets as far as mentioning how he enjoys the _view_ more than anything before Sanghyuk decides, yeah, it’s time for him to leave.

“If you’re gonna be like this, I’m out,” Sanghyuk states and turns, head held high. He barely makes it two steps before Wonshik comes right around him and stands in his path, hands held up to stop him.

“Wait! We haven’t even cashed in our tokens yet!”

“...You care about tokens?” Sanghyuk mumbles, then, “of course you care about _tokens_. Fine, come on, let’s go.”

Wonshik looks bewildered for a second, and then his lips crack a wide, glorious grin, eyes crinkling at their corners. Sanghyuk can see the appeal, he guesses.

“Yes! I am going to get _so much_ candy, you have no idea.”

“Didn’t you already g-”

Hongbin slaps a hand over his mouth, wincing when Sanghyuk bites. To Wonshik, he grins sweetly.

“Of course you are, love.”

Sanghyuk shares a long, meaningful look with Hongbin. He roughly gets the _don’t fucking ruin this for him_ message across and sighs, letting Wonshik lead the way. He’s not even gonna lie, choking on a nice handful of cheap taffy does sound pretty good right now.

Of course, his optimism doesn’t last long.

“ _So_ ,” Hongbin intones, very meaningfully. “About Jaehwan.”

“Uh, no,” Sanghyuk says, moving to sprint over to Wonshik, who’s made it a good few meters away. Before he can even take another step Hongbin grabs his arm, grip like iron. Sanghyuk jiggles his arm but it’s no use and he sighs.

“ _Ow_ , what the Hell?”

“Don’t ‘ _ow_ ’ me!” Hongbin hisses under his breath, because a group of younger kids have also decided to cash in their tokens, it seems. “You have a crazy pain tolerance. You’re not fooling me.”

He has a point. “What do you even want?”

There’s just something about Hongbin dishing out condescending looks today. This one makes Sanghyuk feel like Hongbin’s dealing with a small child, or a very dumb animal.

“I want you to admit you have a crush on Jaehwan,” he says, simply, like it’s the easiest thing in the world for him. Like it’s _obvious_. Sanghyuk blinks a couple times and snorts.

“Well, I won’t- because I _don’t_ ,” Sanghyuk adds quickly but since this is Hongbin, it doesn’t work. Hongbin just rolls his eyes.

“Soon, Hyuk-ah.”

“No,” Sanghyuk says, bluntly. Hongbin sighs.

“I’m a libra, dude. I’m good at this.”

Sanghyuk furrows his brows, confused. “But you don’t read?”

Hongbin is in the middle of looking at the group of kids with a smile before his head whips back to Sanghyuk with a dismayed stare.

“Sanghyuk… libra and librarian aren’t-”

“I stole your card and got your tokens,” Wonshik’s excited voice loudly interrupts, followed by a gasp from Hongbin. Sanghyuk prepares himself for the worst and turns, very slowly.

“That’s… honestly not as bad as I was expecting.”

“Oh,” Wonshik says, disappointed. Both of his hands weigh his enormous bag of candy from side-to-side, his biceps. Some of the pastel wrappers match the colors of his hair, a proud purple and pink split dye, which _still_ isn’t too outlandish. When Hongbin had introduced them he’d had a full head of bright, firetruck red.

“Here,” Hongbin reconciles. He hands Sanghyuk a piece advertised as extra-sour and apple-flavored. “For your troubles.”

“It matches his personality,” Wonshik says. Sanghyuk slaps him on the shoulder with a curse.

Later, when Wonshik and Hongbin have parted from Sanghyuk and the shadows have begun to grow, he walks alone along the strip mall. Fairly certain that he is going straight home, he almost doesn’t stop when he sees it- a little building with sleek, modern walls and illuminated displays, bottles of all colors lining the windows in an order that seems too perfect to be accidental.

The name is what really makes him step inside after some reluctance. A high-end company, its name an up-and-coming staple in lavish households- owned by one of his old classmate’s family back in France. They were never friends, and had barely exchanged more than a few greetings because frankly, Sanghyuk has never been pleased by the fact that he was there solely because his family paid the expenses. So why, pray tell, is he so compelled to enter?

About ten other people total are inside, including staff. Probably because they just opened- Sanghyuk can see the signs advertising a sale because of it. A flashy sign draws him near a display of cherry blossom perfume, as well as a bundle with hand soap and body butter. He checks the footnotes and is pleased to see that they make for a genuinely strong perfume- interestingly, the bottle is not translucent so he can’t see the liquid sloshing around inside. Before the staff can notice him and try to sell to him he puts the bottle down, meandering listlessly.

He doesn’t know why it catches his attention, but he finds his eyes gravitating towards a plain, cream-colored bottle with no definitive markings like the cherry blossom perfume, except this one is an eau de toilette. He hesitates. His hand makes a little claw, fingers twitching in mid-air; he thinks to read the footnotes on the back just to be sure so that’s exactly what his hand does, fingertips brushing against shiny, engraved letters. The bottle is weighty and made of good quality plexiglass, which doesn’t surprise him in the slightest. But if he’s right, and if the sign to his left showing off a flowery, sugary scent includes what he _thinks_ it does….

What does surprise him is that his suspicions are, in fact, correct- there is a heavy dosage of ambroxide in this mixture. He picks up the tester and gives one of the little slips of paper a spray, waving it in front of his nose. Ambroxide, as well as something powdery and sweet: dehydrated lavender, vanilla, the barest hint of sandalwood, all around a stereotypically feminine scent.

He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t.

Nevertheless, he can still feel a wicked grin spread his lips out wide, heart pounding in his chest.

Jaehwan doesn’t know that he knows, is essentially the only thing that’s keeping him going right now. Which is hilarious and also… kind of worrying, because Sanghyuk went to school specifically for perfuming. So of course he knows Jaehwan is making something he really shouldn’t be. Of which is really just mixing ingredients that don’t conventionally belong together. Sanghyuk hadn’t mentioned it, of course, but… he’d detected vanilla extract, and vanilla extract doesn’t really belong in a perfume. It’s not just “vanilla,” it’s corn syrup and caramel coloring and other additives that he may not have taken into account. If his mentor were to try mixing it with a reactive substance it could… not turn out very well. 

Fortunately, ambroxide is a wonderful substitute for vanilla in perfume. He’s confused though, because he was using ambroxide anyway- why not also use it in place of vanilla? But then, Sanghyuk justifies, maybe it’s because they’re running low on supplies. That would make sense.

And that’s why he’d been so nervous that morning, because he’s Sanghyuk’s mentor; what mentor wants to be caught slipping up by their apprentice? Probably not Jaehwan. His pride is through the roof even when it doesn’t need to be.

Who says Sanghyuk can’t tease him for it, though?

That’s what leads him through the door with a bag swinging from his hand and seventy-thousand less won in his wallet, head bobbing in tune with the music in his headphones. He doesn’t even feel upset over the fact that he’s missed the latest bus ride back, nor that Jaehwan’s shop is about a kilo away from his own apartment. The heat has toned down, and he enjoys his walk. The smile stays on his face the whole time.

❁

Jaehwan takes in a deep breath. It comes back out slowly, as tentative as his hands as they hold a vial in one and an eyedropper in the other, both filled with their respective liquids. One is amber in color, and the other, though colorless, packs an insane amount of odor. Thank God he can hold his breath for a while. He takes in another long breath, this time through his mouth.

He squeezes the dropper. Caramel color splashes against the substance in the vial, dipping in only below the surface. Then, nothing.

Jaehwan sighs.

“I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” he complains to no one but himself. He shakes the vial a little but still, nothing. He feels like he might cry.

“ _Come on_.”

He plops down in his chair with a groan, throwing his head back to stare at the ceiling. When the bleak whiteness gives him no answers he looks back down at the book spread out across his table, as well as his notepad and various pens.

“I’m using the only vanilla I have right now,” he tells the book, despairingly. The book says nothing. Jaehwan sighs. “And all of the substitutes are just _ridiculous_.”

Jaehwan picks up his notepad and skims over it until he gets to the section containing the vanilla-esque ingredients. It says that any of the substitutes next to them will garner the same results, but to not use them at the same time as the earthy ingredients because Bad Things will happen.

“Vanilla, cinnamon, figs but make them aphrodisiac,” Jaehwan reads from his notes, and snorts. The book states the most ideal is the aphrodisiac, because of course it is. This is a _love scent_ , practically a _love potion_. Jaehwan supposes if it worked for people about… five-thousand years ago (he’s terrible with math, don’t take his word for this) then it should work now, but still. He cannot get his ingredients, as two problems arise.

One, how does one know whether a fig, or anything really, is ‘aphrodisiac’ enough? The book doesn’t contain any measurement scales or formulas (Jaehwan is a little thankful for that, at least). All it says is ‘aphrodisiac fig.’ He might be able to use an actual aphrodisiac and mix it with fig extract, but it’s quite an expensive liquor. 

Two, he has no time. Each time it appears they’re nearing the end of their stock and the demand of their customers reaches a high, Jaehwan leaves a space of approximately three weeks in order for them to churn out at least four rows of their bestsellers. It’s been working pretty well for the entire time he’s had Sanghyuk with him, but it does mean he has no time to do _anything_ for at least a week, not even trips to the convenience store or going out with friends. They’re in the last week, fortunately, but it’s been unusually difficult for them to complete their current best set. Probably because they’re running low on a lot of supplies.

“I don’t have time to go to the store and get real aphrodisiac! Neither does Sanghyuk, bless his heart. Someone, answer me, _please_.”

He must be live entertainment for some deity because, as soon as he closes his mouth, Jaehwan hears a knock.

His eyes widen to the size of saucers, head snapping towards his door; it’s been locked shut so no one can get in, obviously, but _oh_ does it make his heart lurch, stomach swooping. He’s on his feet in an instant and he curses when he almost drops his notepad. He can barely hear the next round of knocks over the clatter of his entire table’s contents being shoved into his drawer, and the near frantic drum of his heartbeat. 

“Hyung? It’s me.”

 _Yes_ , Jaehwan cries desperately within the void of his mind, safe and alone, _I know. That’s exactly why I can’t have you seeing me do this_.

“Coming!” he yells, a little too loudly for how good the acoustics are in his lab. Shaking, his hands are shaking, and he notices a bit too late; he’s already pushed the door open and there stands Sanghyuk, shoulders so broad they almost reach either door frame. Sanghyuk watches him for a moment, not analytical but just- looking. It makes Jaehwan’s heart race.

“Hyuk-ah?”

Sanghyuk blinks and then shakes his head minutely. A jolt electrifies Jaehwan’s entire body, makes his hairs stand on end; he’d forgotten to disguise the scents. _Shit_.

“Yeah, uh, I got something,” Sanghyuk says with a furrowed brow, “for you, I mean. The Hell are you working on? That’s so strong.”

“Sorry, Hyuk-ah- wait, you got me something?” Jaehwan pauses, eyes wide. Sanghyuk nods, peering over Jaehwan’s shoulder; it’s not hard with how tall he is.

“ _So_ strong, really, hyung,” he mutters, and only when he brings forth a paper bag does Jaehwan realize he’s been carrying it. It’s black, inconspicuous; curiously, Jaehwan gets the urge to prod at it, but then Sanghyuk is taking out its contents for him, no, _content_. Jaehwan holds his breath with anticipation..

“You got me eau de toilette…?”

“Yeah, it’s- look at the notes,” Sanghyuk points to the back of the bottle, then turns it so that it faces Jaehwan. The print is small, too small to be read in the semi-darkness of the hallway. He sighs.

“Here- let me just-” he says, grabbing the bottle when Sanghyuk hands it to him. He squints. Vanilla, musk, lavender, sandalwood, and- and ambroxide. 

“How did you-“

But when he looks up, Sanghyuk is already gone. Jaehwan stands there for a long moment. He can feel his mind forcibly rebooting, drawn to a complete point blank. That is until he gasps, heart jolting. Ambroxide. Typically ambroxide has a distinctive amber scent, almost musky but not quite, and definitely heady and woody- but tinged with a sweetness like vanilla. And last night, Jaehwan was working with ambroxide. Lots of it.

 _Why would he get me this?_ Jaehwan ponders as he shuts the door with his foot, mind racing, heart pounding. _What was the purpose?_ Because they can both make something better, and far less watered down than a chain perfume company can. Sanghyuk is incredibly skilled, and if Jaehwan did not know anything of his rigorous schooling he would say that he was given a gift from the Gods. But Sanghyuk did not make him perfume. He _bought_ it for him, out of his own pocket. What does it mean? _Why_?

He sits down. He feels heavy, like he’s been wrapped in lead weights. Painstakingly he runs his thumb over the embroidered, chic logo, silver and glimmering sullenly. The perfume itself is concealed within the opaque bottle but he knows it will be clear. Clear, and strong, and powerful.

Like Sanghyuk.

 _No_.

Jaehwan shakes his head violently. Images of Sanghyuk cloud his vision like fog around a great mountain, receding into the daylight slowly. Sangyuk’s smile, and his arms, and the way he carelessly misplaces all of his tools, and how he is somehow never able to remember what he ate for lunch but he _does_ remember Jaehwan’s favorite color, and how he’s always able to know just what Jaehwan needs to do to make him smile and comfort him-

He can’t do this for much longer. He can’t.

Tears well up in his eyes and before he knows it he’s crying, hands shaking- desperately reaching for the book. His Bible, by all means. The familiar page gazes up at him tauntingly, and he’s utterly ashamed for it. He’s so, so desperate.

He feels as if maybe he could go too far. He feels that maybe he should stop.

But he can’t.

❁

Sanghyuk waltzes into _Fantaisie_ with an extra bounce in his step, eyes alight and face fixed into a wide smile. He barely notices it when the door opens in his face but he does make the woman walking out smile in return, eyeing him strangely. Sanghyuk couldn’t give a shit if he tried. Today’s a _good day_.

“Sanghyuk-ah!”

And as it turns out, it’s just gotten even better.

“‘Sup, Hakyeon.”

“Hakyeon- _hyung_!” he hears, and then he’s utterly crushed by a pair of two, unrelenting arms around his waist. He groans. Hakyeon laughs.

“Don’t you dare fight it,” Hakyeon warns. Sanghyuk scoffs; he takes the time he’s been given to scan Jaehwan’s shop for a moment. Two other customers trickle into the shop; regulars by all means. Sanghyuk recognizes the baker from across the street talking to Jaehwan, her hair falling over her eyes as she shows his mentor a bottle of perfume. Her breads are fantastic, he thinks he remembers her name being Hyunjin. Either way, she leaves them with little bread baskets every week with her girlfriend. It makes Jaehwan gush every single time, his cheeks fixated with a permanent blush for at least two more days.

Sanghyuk does _not_ think anything of it. He doesn’t. He just thinks Jaehwan is too stupidly emotional for his own good.

“I missed you!” Hakyeon continues, “I haven’t seen you in a week! Did you get my text about Taekwoonie getting into that show you like? He says his favorite character is-”

“Ugh, get off me,” Sanghyuk grunts as Hakyeon’s hold gets tighter and tighter. He shoves him away with the intent to dislodge him- but at that exact moment Hakyeon loosens his grip completely. Sanghyuk watches as he stumbles into someone and immediately apologizes- and then Sanghyuk himself apologizes when he realizes that _someone_ is his mentor.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry-” 

“It’s fine!” Jaehwan blurts. He frantically grips the bag he’d been holding-curious how Sanghyuk hadn’t noticed it yet-his lips plastered into a smile. Sanghyuk doesn’t know how or why, but he can tell it’s not wholly genuine. He ponders whether he should ask, then remembers they have customers and that it would not be wise.

“Be careful not to drop that,” Hakyeon says laughingly. Sanghyuk notes something teasing in his usual lilt, something that intones a far deeper meaning. Sanghyuk aches to decode but he knows Hakyeon would simply be evasive if asked.

“R-right!” Jaehwan says. Hakyeon eyes Sanghyuk, then Jaehwan, and then Sanghyuk again. He snickers.

“Well, Taekwoonie awaits me,” Hakyeon sighs. He gives Sanghyuk one last pat before dancing out of the way lest Sanghyuk reaches out to hit him; he just barely misses. “Get back to doing whatever it is you do.”

“Yes,” Jaehwan nods dutifully. Hakyeon smiles, although it looks more like a smirk. It makes Sanghyuk entirely uncomfortable. He hates not knowing the implicit notes of conversation- especially if they involve his mentor. He doesn’t know why. He just- hates it.

“Okay,” Sanghyuk says. He feels an odd sense of breathlessness, like the air is suffocating him. Jaehwan looks at him with his stupid, big eyes, his dumbass lips bitten red from how nervous he is (most likely), cheeks flushed. God. He needs to leave.

“I’m going upstairs,” Sanghyuk mumbles. He takes a step around Jaehwan, ready to make his way to the staircase behind the counter- but then he stops. He thinks it’s because of the guilt that washes over him when he sees the crestfallen look on Jaehwan’s face. He caused this. He doesn’t like that he caused this.

“Here,” Sanghyuk offers. He opens up his hands, extending them towards Jaehwan- his mentor only looks confused. Sanghyuk sighs. “I can take that to the lab for you.”

“What?” Jaehwan mutters, and then when it dawns upon him, he gasps so hard that he almost chokes. Sanghyuk’s brows furrow. “Oh! Wha- no, it’s okay. I can do it myself.”

Hurt blooms in Sanghyuk’s chest. He’s sure it reflects upon his face for Jaehwan bites his lip again, his shoulders slumping. Sanghyuk really would talk about this, whatever this is, but he walks away without another word. He doesn’t think he can right now.

For the next few hours he busies himself with enfleurage upon the balcony that looks over the street. His hands have become used to the listless practice so that it feels automatic now, almost mechanical. A bird had landed utop the spiraling, art nouveau fence ages ago; it still stands there, observing him keenly. Sanghyuk doesn’t bother pondering its meaning. He’d even fed it a piece of lettuce from his sandwich. It seemed to appreciate it.

When he finishes with what they currently have in demand he takes the oils in their respective beakers and places them right on the counter; this hour is their least busy anyway, and he’s just going to leave them there while he cleans up. He sighs. His apron flutters around him as he turns to give the shop an aimless, cursory look; and then he stops. 

There sits the bag, right on top of the stool Jaehwan occasionally uses to reach the topmost shelves when Sanghyuk isn’t around, or he’s just being stubborn. He would say it’s careless of him to leave it there out in the open; but then again, Sanghyuk would be a hypocrite. Spiteful, he feels spiteful and strangely wounded, a type of mixed feeling he’s very unfamiliar with. He doesn’t know how to handle it. And so he walks.

He opens the bag and forces himself to detach himself; he doesn’t even wince when the rough plastic crinkles in protest. He keeps the same devoid feeling in his heart as he takes the item into his hand- a small, glass bottle sealed with foil, like a bottle of wine. Except, when he turns it over and reads the label he blanches. He stumbles and shoves the bottle back into the bag, careless about being quiet. He runs upstairs and cleans his station silently.

Why would Jaehwan need a bottle of aphrodisiac?

❁

Jaehwan wakes with a start. He sits up in his bed automatically and realizes he’s been sweating, the corners of his eyes unnaturally wet. He is surprised to hear utter silence- usually, his clock would be ticking, cycling through thin Roman numerals. Today, it seems to have stopped. In its wake it leaves an eerie fog, sprawling over the tattered walls and creeping towards his bed slowly, like he’s in a sinking ship surrounded by waters both opaque and teeming with the unknown. Sinking, and sinking, and sinking.

It’s what makes him throw the covers off and stumble out of bed, this feeling. He gets dressed and traipses down the hallway slowly, as if his subconscious is attempting to not disturb the silence. He passes the guest room and, against his better judgement, lingers within the open doorway for a moment. The shelves are decorated with little mementos of Sanghyuk’s presence- a vase of roses, binders stuffed full of extra notes from his schooling, a phone charger or two. He smiles to himself. It feels like it would appear as wistful, dreamy. In reality he could not feel any further from such.

The aphrodisiac sits exactly where he left it last night, nestled and hidden within its plastic confines. He picks it up gingerly, just as he did yesterday- bless Hakyeon for being able to acquire such a rare find, and then _give it to him_ . For _free_. Jaehwan isn’t sure he would be able to do the same, but he also is not the better man between the two of them. The aphrodisiac’s purpose is evidence enough.

The journey to the lab is a heavy one. He feels as if he might be swaying with the bottle’s weight- left, right, left, right. Left, he sees a picture framed of him and Hakyeon, taken by Taekwoon five years ago. Right, the kitchen with its marble countertops and rusted faucets. Left, the lab.

Routine. It’s all routine. He’s done it so often that he doesn’t even feel guilty anymore. Deep down, in the center of his heart, he is aware he should talk to someone, maybe. He should… get help? But he’s in too deep, he could never- what would Hakyeon say if he found out? Would he shame him? Praise him? Leave him? Aid him? He does not know which is worse this far in the game.

Vials upon vials stack up on his racks, as they usually do on days like this. On days where he knows he’s going to spend hours and hours perfecting a scent, wherein Sanghyuk would typically bring him some kind of neon-colored snack or glasses of water. To which Jaehwan would chastise him for being careless and bringing food into the lab. To which Sanghyuk would dismiss and force him to eat anyway- sometimes by hand. Because Jaehwan is nothing if not stubborn, that’s all.

That’s all.

Ambroxide comes out first, then cinnamon extract. His fig essence, a touch of jasmine- and the aphrodisiac. He’s nervous. He’s so, so nervous- why wouldn’t he be? His hands are shaking, he realizes as he grabs hold of the bottle once more. It is crafted of translucent glass and the liquid inside sloshes like honey. It glimmers with the color of pomegranate wine- lighter at the top and darker at its base, where it is probably the most condensed. He gives it a gentle stir and finally peels the foil, twisting the metal cap and placing it near his vials.

The smell is what hits him first. It almost blinds him, so overwhelmingly sweet- roses and jasmine and sugar and alcohol and plums and ginger and vanilla-

_“What’s your favorite season?”_

_He doesn’t know what prompts him to ask. Maybe it’s the way the orange blossoms gently drift down utop their shoulders that reminds him of the coming winter- like the first snow, they cling lightly but not enough to disturb them in the slightest. In fact, Jaehwan rather likes them- they smell pleasant. There is something strangely base about flowers themselves, before they are taken in for enfleurage. Earthy, comforting._

_Beside him, Sanghyuk shrugs. Jaehwan risks a glance and sees that he looks rather indifferent, and winces. Maybe he should have asked a better question, they barely even know each other. Maybe small talk isn’t his to-be apprentice’s thing. He has an issue with assuming everyone is as sociable as he is, sometimes._

_“I like autumn.”_

_Jaehwan hums. He bites his lip silently, wringing his hands. His sleeves are long enough for him to disguise it, but only minutely. If Sanghyuk wanted to, he would look._

_“What’s yours?”_

_Jaehwan is pleased he does not have to fill the silence himself. He smiles a little._

_“Easy. I love spring,” he says, and shivers. A gust of wind hits them out of nowhere and the ends of his scarf fly around him, almost whacking him in the face. He hates how the cold makes his voice shake when he speaks again. “M-my birthday is in spring.”_

_“Really?” Sanghyuk says, and for the first time during their walk, looks at him. When Jaehwan meets his gaze he feels like the world has shifted on its axis- his eyes are so, so pretty. They’re wide, large, and kind, rolling with a kind of honesty Jaehwan is not quite used to seeing anymore. They almost seem to glitter. Almost. Is he really so nervous? Or is it because he’s tired? “Hm. It suits you.”_

_Fortunately Jaehwan is able to pass off the eruption of heat over his face as being caused by the cold. “Oh? Really?”_

_Sanghyuk nods. Cascading around them like they’re in the eye of the storm are the orange blossoms, and Jaehwan has to close his eyes for a second- not because of the smell, rather due to the way Sanghyuk’s hair halos him like he’s made of everything Holy. He smells of lavender, rosemary, and something balmy and earthy- sandalwood. Longing, why does Jaehwan feel longing? That’s odd. He opens his eyes again, and is confused when they feel strangely wet. For some reason Sanghyuk looks- not impassive, but almost curious. Like he’s observing him, analyzing. It makes Jaehwan gulp, hard._

_“Yeah. It suits you a lot.”_

-and lavender.

The revelation hits him so hard that he physically staggers. A memory flashes before his closed eyelids, borne from what he does not wholly know nor understand.

Pounding, his heart is pounding, leaping in his throat as he forces himself to open his desk drawer and take out the damned book. What is this feeling? What did he just uncover? He doesn’t know. He cannot know. All he knows is flowery cursive, thin lines, blurred together by the doing of unfocused eyes. Heaving. His chest heaves, and his arm feels unbelievably weak turning the pages and pointing at the lines he needs, but knows by heart. 

“I’m so fucked up,” Jaehwan mutters, and laughs. “I’m _so_ fucked up.”

_Start with clean beakers. Practice enfleurage with the figs and jasmine, and combine until even. When finished, you may begin with introducing the cinnamon extract with the ambroxide._

❁

“ _Simmer the cinnamon extract and ambroxide for five minutes, or until golden. Strain vigorously_.”

He hears a long, drawn-out sigh. He ignores it and continues.

“ _Place cinnamon mixture into one beaker. Wash away excess_. What a waste, but okay.”

“Will you stop it with the perfuming?”

He looks up. The sight that greets him makes him roll his eyes- whereas he’s actually being productive, he can’t say the same for his best friend, sprawled out on his couch like he owns the place. A game controller lays in his lap, the background music to one of their favorite games droning on listlessly in the background.

“Shut up. You wanted to come over, I told you I was busy.”

“Yeah, and this isn’t exactly what I was expecting,” he hears, and then a groan, “like, I was expecting taxes or something. Is this all you do, Sanghyuk?”

He shakes his head as if to say “no, obviously not.” Hongbin doesn’t seem to get it.

“Listen,” Sanghyuk starts, “this is really important. I can’t fuck this up.”

“Can’t you just do it at Jaehwan’s?” Hongbin asks and sits up. He seems genuinely curious. Sanghyuk snorts on a laugh and turns back to his book, because _no_.

“No,” he says in response, “Jaehwan doesn’t know about this.”

“Doesn’t know about what? You hunched over your kitchen counter mixing together stuff like liquor and figs? You look like a gremlin.”

“ _Aphrodisiac_ ,” Sanghyuk clarifies. Of course, Hongbin brushes it off.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he says and waves a hand. Unpausing the game, he gives Sanghyuk one last, meaningful look. “Don’t go around doing stupid stuff, okay? I don’t wanna have to bail you out or something. What if Taekwoon puts you in there himself?”

“You’re gonna bail me out of Taekwoon’s cell?”

“Well, no. Wonshik’s only a _SoundCloud_ rapper for now.”

“‘For now,’” Sanghyuk repeats, in air quotes. He doesn’t see what Hongbin does next because he’s turned his full concentration back on the ancient text in his palms- or, his stolen copy of the original ancient text, in his hands. He’s glad he doesn’t have one of the originals. He’s heard from the grapevine that they’re incredibly fragile.

He takes a look at his notes and nods to himself- now he remembers this one. He sighs and gets up, his spinny chair irritatingly posturing him in the wrong direction. Tapping his fingers utop his counter he leans forward and opens the cabinet in front of him, grabbing his half-empty bottle of ambroxide. Ironic, really. It seems as if both him and his mentor are working with ambroxide on projects they should not be working on in the first place.

He has no idea what Jaehwan has planned, but this happens regularly- Jaehwan will disappear in the lab for days on end before he comes up with the perfect, new bestseller. Sanghyuk will usually make a few suggestions here and there, Jaehwan will refute or agree, and then they’ll promote it on their website and through ads (with the help of Hongbin and Hakyeon, as both graphic designers and artists). This is normal. Routine, even.

However, what Jaehwan is blissfully unaware of is that Sanghyuk is not the incompotent apprentice he believes him to be.

“What’s that for, anyway?”

“A client,” Sanghyuk calls back. “He wants a love scent for his ex or something. I dunno, I don’t really read the stories.”

“That’s cold,” Hongbin says laughingly. Sanghyuk makes a noise of assent.

“At least he doesn’t want the one for life. That one’s way too overpowered.”

“For life? What do you need for that?”

Sanghyuk grins ruefully.

“A lot of blood.”

When he’d first gotten hold of the book, he’d thought it was a joke. A hoax. He’d looked extensively around the campus library for any hidden cameras but his friends had insisted that it was real, and that they’d stolen it from deep within the forbidden archives. How they hadn’t been caught, Sanghyuk does not know. How Sanghyuk was not caught stealing it from them upon the day of his leave back to South Korea, he also does not know.

“Need me to drive you again?”

“Nah, it’s not that far,” Sanghyuk promises. He uncaps the ambroxide and lets the right base amount trickle into a clean beaker, easily landing every drop. “How’d the one for Wonshik go?”

“He got the job. He says he loves you.”

“Nice.”

A teaspoon of cinnamon extract. A tiny bit more ambroxide to balance it out and let it settle. He sets the beaker down on his hot plate and switches it on, watching the liquid simmer.

“So how’s your crush going?”

Sanghyuk halts. He feels his hands twitch. He cannot tell whether it is from his fight or flight instinct, or something more.

“I don’t have a crush.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hongbin brushes him off, again, “you know you’re going to lose him if you keep pretending you don’t care, right?”

Sanghyuk laughs. He shakes his head.

“No, I’m not.”

“How do you know?”

“‘Cause I do,” Sanghyuk says and shrugs, more to himself than anything. He hears the game pause once again and rolls his eyes.

“You’re not telling me something,” Hongbin says as he turns around, perching himself so that his head hangs off the back of the couch. Accusingly he points one of his fingers. Sanghyuk can’t keep his eyes on him for much longer for his mixture has begun to boil slightly. He switches off the hot plate and grabs his tongs, placing the beaker safely to the left of the cinnamon extract.

“I don’t tell you a lot of things,” he says casually. He hears Hongbin snort.

“The whole ‘I’m mysterious and elusive’ thing doesn’t work when you look like a Ghostbusters reject.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Sanghyuk mutters. He hears nothing more from Hongbin so he continues onto the next step, and uncaps the vial containing fig extract. Somehow, he realizes as he breathes in the sickeningly sweet oil, his mind lingers back to last night. Specifically, his discovery last night. Jaehwan harboring a luxury, practically unattainable item such as that type of aphrodisiac had left him shaken up for longer than he’d like to admit. Unsurprisingly he’d left without Jaehwan noticing him.

In the wake of Sanghyuk’s leave he’d felt similarly to how he does now- but the thing is, he cannot categorize the feeling no matter how hard he tries. And tries he does, with all of his might; is he angry? Not really. Sad? A bit, but that could also be from a multitude of other things ranging from seasonal depression to the recent passing of his childhood pet. Nervous? Maybe so. Whenever he’s around Jaehwan he feels… antsy. Fluttery. His stomach ties up in knots upon knots and it takes his all to make his mind shut the fuck up so he can talk to his mentor like any other, _normal_ person would. He’s been blaming it on the nerves he usually gets before spring, during their busiest season. Recently, he’s been doubting himself.

“So, what exactly is in this?”

Sanghyuk glances at Hongbin, back to his extract, and then back to Hongbin faster than he can register. Because there Hongbin is, doing the unthinkable and _opening the aphrodisiac_ without any protective gear, tools, or _preparation_.

“Stop!”

Hongbin blanches at the urgency in his voice. He quickly puts the bottle back down and opens his mouth, but Sanghyuk beats him to it.

“That’s _strong_. If you don’t use goggles you could go blind.”

“Really?” Hongbin says, clearly awed, “wow. Am I good on the couch?”

“Yeah, the threshold is a meter,” Sanghyuk says with a nod. Hongbin nods back and waltzes back to the couch. He props his feet up on Sanghyuk’s coffee table and resumes the game.

“I had no idea you worked with _actually_ dangerous stuff. I thought it was all flowers.”

“Well, if you want something powerful you need powerful materials,” Sanghyuk says and shrugs. He feels himself start to calm down, heart rate returning to normal as he uncaps the aphrodisiac, making sure to hold his breath for the appropriate amount of time.

That is, until he remembers something. Something that makes his heart stop cold, ice shooting through his veins in thin shards that make his entire body freeze, hands stilling. Time doesn’t stop but it slows, and slows, and slows, so much that when he finally moves his hands again they feel heavy, like he’s been turned to gold.

Jaehwan doesn’t have any goggles. He doesn’t have any goggles and he might be using aphrodisiac right at this moment.

He’d broken Jaehwan’s pair just a week ago. Shattered, Sanghyuk had dropped them and they’d shattered and left shards of glass all over the lab, like a haphazard mosaic. They’d spent at least an hour and a half cleaning them up and sanitizing every surface just to be safe. How could he forget? _How_?

It is possible that Jaehwan went out and bought a new pair. It is also possible that he happens to have an extra pair that Sanghyuk never knew about. However, the mind-numbing fear that grasps at him like a snake coiled around its prey is what pushes him to stop everything, heart racing.

“Hongbin, I need to go.”

“What?” Hongbin says and looks behind him, despite being in the middle of invading a camp of bokoblins- most likely due to the audible distress in Sanghyuk’s voice. Sanghyuk doesn’t care. His mind is set on one thing and one thing only, and he abruptly grabs his keys from the little bowl on his counter. He doesn’t care if Hongbin stays, he doesn’t care if he ruins his solution. He just needs to _leave_.

“No, what? Where are you going?” Hongbin says. He scrambles off of the couch and pauses, arm extended. Sanghyuk looks away and runs to his door, tugging on a light jacket. 

“To Jaehwan-hyung.”

❁

It is when Jaehwan is about to open the bottle of aphrodisiac that he hears the lab door open with a terrible _bang_. He gasps. He can barely breathe, his entire body short-circuiting, and the horrible, awful feeling that makes his whole heart sink all the way to the ground feels strangely akin to the shock he felt being caught by his mother taking sweets from the cupboards as a child. Somehow, this feels worse by a hundredfold.

“S-Sanghyuk-”

His apprentice doesn’t speak. He only moves, and with each step he takes forward Jaehwan moves backwards, until his back hits one of his cabinets and he jumps, whimpering. He can’t breathe, he recognizes faintly. He can’t even think.

Oh God. Oh, God, oh God, _oh God, oh God_ -

“You need goggles for aphrodisiac.”

Sanghyuk sounds urgent, and only then does Jaehwan see that he looks worried. But Jaehwan still can’t breathe. He feels like his mouth has been glued shut, and not even when the first tear falls does he react. But Sanghyuk certainly does. His eyebrows furrow, eyes wide.

“Hyung? Are you okay?”

Jaehwan closes his eyes and whimpers again. He can’t bear it. He cannot bear watching Sanghyuk discover that he is a monster, a horrible, manipulative husk of a man. He doesn’t hear anything until Sanghyuk presumably starts flipping through the pages of the book. And then, a gasp.

“Hyung. Where did you get this?”

“No,” Jaehwan mumbles, shaking his head. He feels a hand on his shoulder and jumps out of his skin, eyes opening on instinct. There are Sanghyuk’s big, inquisitive eyes, and Jaehwan doesn’t think he can survive this. Shit, _shit_.

“Listen to me,” Sanghyuk says, and then, to Jaehwan’s utter disbelief- smiles. “I’m not mad.”

Jaehwan shakes his head again. Fervently, he tries shrugging off Sanghyuk’s hand. He doesn’t let go, but his grip loosens so that he can barely feel him.

“You must be,” Jaehwan says under his breath, “you don’t even know me, I’m a monster, I’m so, so sorry, I-”

“ _J_ _aehwan-hyung_.”

His mouth shuts once more. Sanghyuk smiles, but it feels strangely- off. Empty. It makes Jaehwan swallow hard.

“If you’re a monster, then so am I.”

Jaehwan shakes his head. When Sanghyuk leans forward even more he feels a spike of pure fear course through him. He can’t even pull away.

“No, you don’t understand-”

“I do,” Sanghyuk interrupts. He turns halfway so that he still looks at Jaehwan, and without once looking at the scripture, he speaks.

“ _L'odeur de tomber amoureux._ ”

Jaehwan halts. He blinks. His mind turns up point-blank, every single molecule in his body committed to standing stalk still. Upon noticing his shock, Sanghyuk continues.

“I can’t believe you have an original copy. Did you buy it? How much was-”

“How do you know about this book?” Jaehwan asks, very seriously. He pushes as much conviction into his words as possible. No. It can’t be. Sanghyuk rolls his eyes and laughs.

“Like I’m telling you. How do _you_ -”

“How. Do. You. Know. About this book,” Jaehwan enunciates each word very clearly. Panic makes him leap away, far, far out of Sanghyuk’s reach. He feels icky all over, like his body is crawling with insects, his stomach rolling with bile. Sanghyuk narrows his eyes, clearly confused.

“I stole a copy from my university’s library,” he says casually. No. _No_.

“No,” Jaehwan says aloud, this time. Finally, it dawns upon Sanghyuk that perhaps, Jaehwan is not on the same page. He steps back, raising his eyebrows. His body is so big that it almost covers an entire third of his desk from this angle. Jaehwan would not notice if not for the way he seems to gravitate towards the book. Surely.

“What do you mean, ‘no?’ Am I not _allowed_ to use it?” he demands. Jaehwan shakes his head. Sanghyuk’s cheeks puff up, his shoulders rising.

“What the fuck? Why not?”

“Just- _no_ ,” Jaehwan says. What he doesn’t say is that, holy shit. _Holy shit_ , all this time, he could have been- falling in love. Not with Sanghyuk, but with Sanghyuk’s creations, his disguises. Sanghyuk could have been using him as an experiment, could have been manipulating him in the same manner Jaehwan was about to do. And although it very much makes him a terrible person, he can’t handle it. He wants to pull his hair out, to scream and cry and pretend this isn’t happening all at once. What have they been _doing_.

He clambers back over to his work table, shoving all of his vials and beakers to the side so he can toss the book back into his drawer carelessly. He very honestly hopes he damages the damned thing. It deserves it, by all means.

“So you’re allowed to use literal magic and I’m not?” Sanghyuk scoffs. Jaehwan laughs bitterly and snatches up his racks of tubes, marching over to the sink in a way he hopes is defiant.

“Correct,” he says back. Sanghyuk makes a confused noise.

“What the Hell? Is it because I’m your apprentice? Younger than you? Are you _jealous_?”

 _No_ , Jaehwan screams within his own mind. _It’s because now, I can’t think that I’m truly in love with you_. It’s impossible to imagine that all this time Jaehwan has been falling for the sincerity in Sanghyuk’s every word, the way he would always be so attentive to Jaehwan to the point where they had become in sync. Currently, they work in complete unison. With every box that runs empty, Sanghyuk makes sure to replace with a new one without question. When they go out together to run errands or just hang out, they understand each other’s boundaries- whereas Jaehwan loves talking, Sanghyuk loves physical affection (despite what he may say). If they grow tired or unwell, they know how to lift each other up. It’s routine, genuine. Or so, he thought.

“Maybe,” Jaehwan says. Sanghyuk lumbers over to the sink, his footsteps echoing like thunder. It takes every ounce of Jaehwan’s willpower to not turn when he senses his apprentice behind him, still cleaning out his dirty tubes.

“You don’t get to do this,” Sanghyuk says defiantly, “you don’t get to manipulate people with scents and then go ahead and tell me I can’t do the same thing. You don’t even know what I do with them!”

“And I don’t need to,” Jaehwan says, and punctuates himself by switching off the sink. He turns swiftly and is shocked to find Sanghyuk a mere half of a meter from him. He masks it readily with anger.

“Do you understand how hypocritical that is?” Sanghyuk wonders, clearly bemused. Jaehwan doesn’t give into the bait. This makes Sanghyuk sigh. “What kind of mentor acts like this?”

Sanghyuk visibly blanches. He slaps a hand over his mouth, eyes wide with the shock of his own words, but Jaehwan doesn’t care. The pain has already settled, within the gaping wound that runs down his back like a second mouth, spouting bouts of shivers all over the length of his body. Sanghyuk reaches for him but he walks away. His body feels weighted. His fingers flex at his sides, uncomfortably cold as the water dries. It feels like nothing compared to what he feels in his chest, a deep-seated chill radiating from his core to his arms and legs. It numbs his throat, his tongue, his lips.

“Well, I never asked for an apprentice like you.”

He does not watch as Sanghyuk shuts his mouth with an audible _click_. He does not watch as he spits back a colorfully decorated sentence and tells him he’s not coming back tomorrow. He does not watch as he stalks away and zips his jacket up with one aggressive motion, so much so that it sounds like the crack of a whip. He definitely does not watch as the door opens, light filtering in like a beacon of Heaven’s light, and slams shut, cutting off his only Heaven. His only motivation. His one and only love.

He barely feels it when he picks up his phone and presses on Hakyeon’s contact with a trembling hand, bringing it up to the side of his face. The automated ringing stops abruptly and he breathes in, exhaling deeply. Hakyeon greets him cheerfully.

“ _Good morning, Jaehwanie_!”

“Hey, hyung. Can I talk to you?”

❁

Sanghyuk wakes feeling numb. He takes a shower, eats breakfast, waters his succulents, and checks his emails feeling numb. Wonshik sends him a meme through Twitter and he feels numb. Taekwoon texts him a picture of his and Hakyeon’s cat, because he desperately wants a cat and had asked for pictures. He still feels numb.

Instead of spending his day how he normally would, he avoids any and all things that bring memory of Jaehwan- which is harder than Sanghyuk thought it would be. For some reason, with each bite of his eggs he is catapulted into one memory or another involving Jaehwan. 

Jaehwan, cooking eggs and giving him his favorite mint tea (which Sanghyuk honestly doesn’t care for too much, but he swallows it down just to see Jaehwan smile). Jaehwan, wandering to the local flower shop and subsequently entering their own shop too late, only to thrust a bouquet of pink peonies into Sanghyuk’s arms. Jaehwan, his laughter that lights up the entire room, a voice that glitters like the speckled light that filters through cherry blossom trees during their short-lived season, which Sanghyuk secretly loathes. He wishes to see Jaehwan haloed by spindling branches of cherry blossoms all year. He wishes desperately to see the swell of his cheeks, how he hunches over in the cold, his nose pink with laughter. But why?

Perhaps there is no use in pondering when Sanghyuk does not have the choice to act upon his feelings at the moment. Perhaps it is best to ignore them.

He doesn’t feel any better when he’s spinning mindlessly in Hongbin’s gaming chair some hours later, listening to Wonshik’s latest release.

“He wants to know if he should add more autotune,” Hongbin notes from his position on the couch. Wonshik is at his side moments later with a bag of honey butter chips. He offers Hongbin some, to which he shakes his head. A pang of that _feeling_ from earlier rings throughout Sanghyuk’s chest at the sight. Something… dark, almost. He scowls.

“Less autotune?” Wonshik asks. Sanghyuk groans.

“No, no, the autotune’s whatever. I mean, it’s- yes, add more.”

“Okay,” Wonshik says slowly. Sanghyuk closes his eyes and spins again. He makes three rounds before the chair comes to a dead stop. He yelps, swaying.

“That’s it. We need to talk about your situation with Jaehwan,” Hongbin orders from above him, both arms clenching down on the back of the chair. Sanghyuk rolls his eyes.

“Fuck off.”

“No.”

The music shuts off with a click of Wonshik’s mouse. Then, Sanghyuk is hauled to his feet by two strong arms, hands wrapped around his biceps. He curses again.

“Sorry,” Wonshik says cheerfully. He plops Sanghyuk down on the couch and sits next to him, Hongbin taking his place in his chair. He leans back leisurely, hands propped behind his head.

“You’ve been going from typical-Sanghyuk-feral to actually-concerning-feral. We’re worried.”

He hates the note of pity in Hongbin’s voice. But, he thinks wearily, there’s no real way for him to run from this. At least, by the way Wonshik and Hongbin look at him, it seems not.

“So what even happened?”

He leans back. How is he going to explain this? There’s so much he just- handled wrong, or didn’t get the chance to explain. He wishes more than anything to rewind and do it all over again. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt this much.

Each time he shuts his eyes, the memory of the look on Jaehwan’s face flashes behind his eyelids. Never before has he seen him so… anguished. Scandalized, even. After mulling it over for hours and hours in his bed, he’s come to understand why, exactly. Or at least, he thinks.

He believes Jaehwan is hurt because he can’t trust him anymore. He probably sees Sanghyuk having his own secrets to this degree as something akin to betrayal. Everytime he thinks of that, he also thinks of how hypocritical it is, but it’s not like he can blame him for being so angry. Sanghyuk had never gotten the chance to explain, to try and draw a truce or ask for a later date to talk it over. His emotions had gotten the best of him and he lashed out.

“I went back to _Fantasie_ ‘cause I knew he might have been working with aphrodisiac,” he starts, and pauses to clear his voice. In the time that he does, Wonshik hands him a chip. He takes it without protest. “I remembered that he doesn’t have any goggles. You can’t work with aphrodisiacs without goggles, it’s really dangerous. And when I got there, I found something out. You might want to brace yourselves.”

“Is he a murderer?”

“Is he cheating?”

“Oh my God, _is he cheating_?”

“Wh- we’re not- you know what, nevermind,” Sanghyuk deflates against the couch. He balefully accepts another chip. “He has the same book. He’s been working on a love scent.”

A pause. Sanghyuk looks from Hongbin to Wonshik. They both have equal amounts of confusion etched into their faces, and eventually, awe.

“No way. Really? Little ‘ol Jaehwan?” Wonshik asks. Sanghyuk nods.

“I mean, yeah.”

“What happened next?”

“I told him I have the same book and he went berserk. He said he doesn’t want an apprentice like me.”

An even longer silence. The ceiling fan whirs quietly, the backdrop to Sanghyuk’s self-deprecating confession. Wonshik gives him the entire bag. Sanghyuk huffs a small, bitter laugh.

“Wow. That… really sucks.”

“Hongbin, you have no emotional intelligence,” Wonshik sighs out. Sanghyuk shakes his head.

“No, it’s fine. I’m not gonna cry or anything.”

“Crying is a very healthy coping mechanism and it helps you release the emotions that society pushes for you to bottle up,” Wonshik notes sagely. Sanghyuk doesn’t want to reply, so he stuffs his face with as many chips as he can. Hopefully, they get stuck in his throat and he chokes on them. But then, he thinks, that would be a pretty lame death. Loser Han Sanghyuk dies in soon-to-be rapper Wonshik and Twitch streamer Hongbin’s apartment, by a potato chip. He can even imagine the picture they’d choose. It’d be his picture uploaded on the _Fantasie_ website, back when he’d had his hair ultra short for France. It would be humiliating.

“Do you want to play Apex with me?”

Sanghyuk peers up at Hongbin. He’s standing, pointing at his monitor with one of his tiny fingers, smiling sadly. Wonshik starts chastising him. It’s so- _Hongbin_ that it makes him laugh a little, interrupting Wonshik. Hongbin starts asking _What? What’s so funny_? but Sanghyuk nods, shutting them both up. He stands with a deep inhale, and exhales on a sigh. And he grins.

“Yeah. That would be nice.”

❁

Jaehwan feels cold. The tips of his fingers are almost numb when they rest upon his arms, the difference in temperature too much for his body to adjust to. His nose feels so cold that it hurts to breathe. Despite the heat that surrounds him and the spicy curry in front of him, he feels cold.

“Is it up to your standards?”

Jaehwan peers up at Hakyeon and pouts despite the teasing tone in his voice. Hakyeon sits across from him, the picture of elegance- back straight and glass of water swirling in his hand idly, eyes twinkling. Jaehwan nods and blows on his spoonful of chicken and rice. The flavor blooms in his mouth, savory and slightly sweet. Taekwoon’s cooking is phenomenal, as always.

To Jaehwan’s surprise, it was Taekwoon who had greeted him at the door- on his way out to work a late shift at the station. Upon entering Hakyeon had said it was important, so Jaehwan hadn’t pressed. He wouldn’t have in the first place, because Taekwoon had just finished cooking his best Japanese curry for them- and Hakyeon said he’ll eat when he comes home.

Hakyeon appears satisfied. He takes a generous bite of his own and then a sip of water, all without breaking eye contact. Even though they’ve been friends for years, Jaehwan has never been fully used to the way Hakyeon just- watches. Keenly, not unlike a lounging jungle cat, hanging off every word with genuine interest. He has always been poised, composed- which is probably why he’s such a successful graphic designer. Connections are everything, he’d said to Jaehwan once.

“So what’s wrong? You look really… sad.”

Jaehwan looks away. He decides that if he stuffs his face with rice that he won’t have to answer so that’s exactly what he does, but afterwards he realizes that Hakyeon’s still- well, he’s still there. And he has no more food to do it with. He can’t run away from this. No matter how much his mind shouts at him to just up and leave, he knows he cannot. And so he swallows, grimacing.

“Um. Something happened with Sanghyuk.”

Metallic sounds punctuate him as Hakyeon finishes his meal, satisfied. He hums, “did you finally tell him?”

Hakyeon must notice he’d said the wrong thing by the expression on Jaehwan’s face, his mouth pulled into a thin line. Hakyeon drops his spoon and stands, extending a hand out to him and shaking it lightly. He takes it, albeit cautiously.

“Come. Let’s talk about it.”

He lets himself be led to the couch, covered in simple but expensive-looking leather. Which is why instead of finishing his drink on it Jaehwan places his glass on the coffee table. Hakyeon perches next to him a good meter or so away. Bless him for his ever-perceptive nature, because Jaehwan truly does need the space.

The thing is, once Hakyeon gives him the floor, he has no idea what to say. Pondering over what could have been is useless, he understands that much, but he can’t stop. Once everything had been said and done he’d abandoned the lab and taken a three hour-long bath; whereas Hongbin and Sanghyuk find their relief in drinking, his coping mechanism is ridiculous amounts of self care. It usually helps. For once, it hadn’t. The entire time he’d been left staring at the low ceiling, eyes tracing invisible shapes as the sun stripped away its light and replaced it with oblong, abstract figures. Once or twice, he’d thought them to be moving towards him when in reality, it had been due to the tears that began to spill without warning.

He cannot confess to using the book. He will not. So he must fabricate a lie, and hope to all things Holy that he won’t be caught up in it. If it spiderwebs into something more, he does not know what he’ll do. Internally he knows that if he does lie, Hakyeon won’t press him into telling the truth- he’s too kind of a soul. But he may hint at it to Taekwoon, and Taekwoon is rather close to Wonshik, who is close to Hongbin, and both are close to Sanghyuk. Panic rises in him but he quickly swallows it down.

“We had a fight,” Jaehwan starts, and exhales shakily. Hakyeon’s cat jumps up on the couch between them and snuggles into his arm; he pets her distractedly. “I got mad at him and said something I shouldn’t have.”

The cat begins to pur. Jaehwan puts his hands in between his knees, shoulders dipping forward. His phone lights up with a notification to his side. He takes it, and sighs when he sees it’s only for an application. He can’t see Hakyeon but he knows he’s looking at him with pity.

“You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“No,” Jaehwan says with a wince, “I don’t think I want to anymore.”

“Well, what exactly happened?”

Great question. Jaehwan doesn’t entirely know himself. He sighs, head tipping back to gaze at the ceiling. It’s just past eighteen-hundred so the shadows are growing a little long, but they still remain solid and recognizable. How can he even begin to put his thoughts in order?

“I… was working on a new perfume. The one with the aphrodisiac you gave me, actually. Anyway, i wasn’t expecting him to-”

“The aphrodisiac?” Hakyeon splutters. Jaehwan turns to him, a little alarmed at the level of urgency in Hakyeon’s voice. As if a switch is flicked Hakyeon regains his composure, and gestures for Jaehwan to go on. Huh. Strange.

“...So, um, he came in while I was working and we fought. I’ve never seen him that mad.”

“Tragic.”

Jaehwan falters. The tone in Hakyeon’s voice is… abrasive? No, not exactly. More blunt. He gives Hakyeon a questioning look. Hakyeon, upon being seen, fixes his face into a warm smile and shakes his head. Jaehwan relaxes.

“I mean, the aphrodisiac. It’s tragic that it didn’t work. I know that if it did, you would tell me.”

Caught off guard and a little angry, Jaehwan gives Hakyeon an odd look. Hakyeon is no longer facing him, rather his cat, so he doesn’t see. It makes Jaehwan a little more miffed than he’d like to admit.

“I… guess so?”

“Was it not the right amount? Or degree?” Hakyeon continues. Jaehwan blinks.

“You’re not going to ask me what else happened?”

“It’s obvious you don’t want to tell me,” Hakyeon says, and finally meets his eyes. Jaehwan is the one to look away this time, heart racing. He bites his lip and looks to Taekwoon’s indoor plant collection, beside the hallway to their left. One of them hangs from a perch attached to the ceiling, and its vines sway every-so-slightly from the air conditioning. Following its movements with his eyes calms him slightly, but not nearly enough.

“You’re right.”

“What a shame,” Hakyeon mutters, “oh, well. I can’t return it if it’s opened, so I guess we can make use of it otherwise.”

“Oh wait, you have the wrong idea- I never used it,” Jaehwan says, and sighs balefully, “I never got the chance to.”

The pause that follows is odd, almost tense. Awkwardly, Jaehwan puts his phone down and picks up his half-finished juice instead, making sure to drink it over the floor; it’s mango flavored and Hakyeon’s favorite. Jaehwan doesn’t mind it but it is a little too sweet for the curry.

“What? You didn’t use it?” Hakyeon repeats, eyes wide. Jaehwan nods and looks away, slumping down so that the small of his back hits the couch cushions. He puts the drink down carefully.

“No. Sanghyuk-ah… kind of stopped me.”

“Oh no, we can’t have that,” Hakyeon murmurs. Quirking an eyebrow, Jaehwan glances at him out of the corner of his eye.

“Well, I can’t do anything about it now.”

“You can,” Hakyeon says very, very seriously, and then Jaehwan feels something warm on his knee. He thinks it’s the cat, so imagine the shock he feels when he sees Hakyeon’s hand, not splotchy fur. He tenses, but Hakyeon does not let go. His grip intensifies.

“You _can_ ,” Hakyeon mutters, and finally Jaehwan looks at him again. It chills him to his core. 

The expression on Hakyeon’s face is uncharacteristically- vehement. His eyes are piercing, so wide that he can see his own reflection if he looks hard enough.

The sudden feeling of something _wrong_ hits him like a wall of bricks. Something about the way Hakyeon looks at him makes his stomach lurch and his heart pound so that he can physically feel it beating against his chest. Hakyeon doesn’t desire him, obviously not, and he doesn’t loathe him either- so what’s with the fire in his eyes? And why does it make Jaehwan propel a good meter away, feet skidding on the floor?

“I have to use the bathroom,” he blurts, and jumps off the couch with so much force that Hakyeon stumbles back. He can feel Hakyeon’s eyes boring into him as he speed-walks to the nearest bathroom, in the hallway to the left. His pocket feels heavy where his phone rests, and when he closes the door and locks it he snatches it out, his entire body convulsing with tremors. He even has to enter his password because his hands are too clammy to use the fingerprint scanner.

He hesitates once he can see his home screen. What is he doing? Hakyeon is about as dangerous as a puppy. It’s Taekwoon he should be worried about, as a cop with an extensive portfolio of combat skills. But he also knows that if it were Taekwoon here with him rather than Hakyeon, he would have a cushion of safety- he could easily use Taekwoon’s work phone and call someone from there. He has his phone, but all he has to go off of is a _feeling_ , of all things. Who is he supposed to call, the police? They won’t come unless something actually fatal is going on. God. He has no other choice, then.

“Please, please, _please_ ,” he whispers. He navigates to his text conversation with Sanghyuk first, but he hesitates again. Fuck. How is he going to do this? He can’t talk to Sanghyuk. But then, Sanghyuk is the only other one of them besides Taekwoon that actually has this address memorized- he’d taken the bus here. And Jaehwan doesn’t know it himself. And there’s no way he’s going out there and asking Hakyeon.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says, aloud this time. Okay, he can do this. He feels close to nothing as he types out his message, short and to the point. No need for anything else. If Sanghyuk wants to talk, he’ll do it when he picks him up. Yes. 

But, for some reason, the little blue bar at the top never quite reaches the edge of the screen. It seems stuck. It makes Jaehwan very confused; he disconnects from the wifi yet still the message will not send. Okay. Well, it’s truly all he can do for now. He’s been in the bathroom for over five minutes, he can’t stay any longer. Hakyeon- the Hakyeon he’s familiar with would do his best to check on him, and he can’t deal with that for obvious reasons.

He splashes water on his face and pockets his phone, staring at himself in the mirror. He looks- disheveled. Sad. Hakyeon was right, and when he laughs bitterly because of it his mouth twists into an ugly grimace. Deep breath in, deep breath out. He’s okay. Sanghyuk will be here soon and if not, he’ll just leave on his own. He’ll say he has to go to the store or something. He will be okay.

But when he opens the door, he makes not one step before he’s yanked out of the doorway and something like a cloth is shoved in his face, so overpowering that he feels his knees buckle and his arms go limp. All he can think about as he drifts off is Sanghyuk. Sanghyuk, _Sanghyuk_.

Jaehwan wakes feeling groggy. His head feels heavy and fuzzy like it’s been filled with liquified TV static. His body feels gross, sticky; when he moves he notices that he’s on the couch, and has been for some time. He almost groans aloud, and then stops. A jolt lurches him upright, eyes wide and heartbeat pounding with the remembrance of… of how long ago?

But when he looks around he notices that he’s still in Hakyeon’s living room and it is still light out, maybe a little less so. The sun has begun its descent beyond the skyline, Jaehwan can see it through the window. Hakyeon’s cat lays curled up in her bed and when he turns to see her, she blinks at him curiously. Speaking of Hakyeon, Jaehwan can’t see him in the livingroom at all, which isn’t quite what makes him panic. What makes him panic is the realization that he does not have his phone anymore.

“Don’t worry, it’s only been about twenty minutes.”

Jaehwan just about jumps out of his skin. He whips around to see none other than Hakyeon standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall with his hip out and arms crossed. Infuriatingly, he still looks calm. Jaehwan tries to get up but as he does, his head spins. He sits back down with a grunt.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” Hakyeon says, and nods to Jaehwan idly. When Jaehwan doesn’t react he rolls his eyes, voice curt. “I know you have the book of scents. I want it.”

Well, fuck. 

Jaehwan swallows down the urge to scream, but the almost paralyzing shock that courses through him makes it hard. Hakyeon steps forward with purpose, direction. Jaehwan shrinks back.

“You will bring me the book,” Hakyeon murmurs, very slowly, “and you will make me the perfume of life.”

Jaehwan recoils. He shakes his head immediately but Hakyeon steps forward again so that they are a mere half-meter away, and bends down. When he speaks his voice is low, velvety.

“You _will_.”

Again, Jaehwan shakes his head. Before Hakyeon can interrupt he rushes to speak, unintentionally sounding clipped. He is acutely aware of the way Hakyeon scowls at him.

“No, you don’t understand,” Jaehwan says in one breath, “that one- it isn’t just one, it’s a combination of seven scents and it’s so powerful that-”

“Does it look like I fucking care?” Hakyeon spits. Jaehwan pauses, shocked. Rare is it for Hakyeon to swear, even rarer is it for him to look so angry. It takes him a second to collect his thoughts.

“People will kill for it, Hakyeon. I’m saying they’ll kill _you_. You cannot use it.”

“And why do you think I want it?” Hakyeon says. He stands with one fluid motion, stretching his legs out absently as he eyes Jaehwan down. “I want the power.”

“ _Power_? W- how?” Jaehwan blurts, and Hakyeon rolls his eyes and scoffs. As he does, the unthinkable happens and Jaehwan feels his stomach sink all the way to the ground, visceral dread shooting through him. He pulls out a switchblade, turning it towards Jaehwan.

“I don’t have time for this. I won’t hesitate,” Hakyeon says, very meaningfully. Immediately Jaehwan shakes his head, steeling himself with a deep sigh. The look Hakyeon gives him could strip the marrow from his bones but he holds out regardless of how his hands begin to tremble.

“How are you going to use it?” Jaehwan asks again. Hakyeon is silent for a very long moment, and in its wake is an energy loaded with something charged and dangerous. However, instead of saying anything he turns around and swiftly walks over to the kitchen. Jaehwan blinks, surprised, but doesn’t have time to ask him what he’s doing because then Hakyeon is standing before him once again, gaze icy. 

He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like seeing Hakyeon look like this, when the only Hakyeon he’s known for over three years is anything but cold. He’s supposed to be energetic, charismatic, warm; the Hakyeon that he knows bickers with Taekwoon over things as trivial as leaving mugs on the counter. The Hakyeon he knows helps Hongbin find sponsors for his galleries for free, no questions asked. The Hakyeon he knows brings Wonshik food when he’s overworking himself into the early hours of the night, despite them not being very close. The utter feeling of _wrongness_ in it all is overwhelming.

So overwhelming, in fact, that Jaehwan doesn’t notice what’s happening until he feels the chill of metal against his arm and then suddenly, a burst of fiery pain. He gasps, and then again when he looks down. A narrow, clean line interrupts the plane of his skin with deep red, oozing slowly to the crook of his elbow.

“What the fuck!” he splutters. He has no chance to scurry away, and try as he might when Hakyeon grips onto him with one hand so hard that Jaehwan can feel the indents of his fingers carving into his bones. He cries out, shaking his arm every which way, legs tripping over each other in an attempt to stand. Hakyeon never lets him go.

“Let me _go_ -”

“Now you _have_ to help me,” Hakyeon says, positively satisfied with himself. Jaehwan doesn’t know what he means until Hakyeon holds something up to him with his opposite hand, and- Jaehwan’s heart sinks.

“You wouldn’t.”

Hakyeon shakes the vial of blood in his hand, taunting and deliberately slow. _Jaehwan’s_ blood. His hand flexes to reach for it but Hakyeon notices, and with a sly smile he pockets it. Just casually, in his jeans. A flash of a thought runs through his mind, and it makes him physically reel- has he done this before? Has he talked to Hakyeon whilst he’d harbored human blood, or worse? He’s going to be sick.

“I will if you don’t bring me the book,” Hakyeon says slowly, as if talking down to a child. Jaehwan thinks he might cry. He can’t do this. It’s finally over.

If Hakyeon were to use Jaehwan’s blood in the scent of life, he’d be doomed. It has a funny way of making you irresistible. So irresistible, that all participants whose blood is within the mixture will be seen as irresistible by the consumer- to the point of cannibalism. If Hakyeon were to obtain the book by other means, he could use Jaehwan’s blood, and Jaehwan could be done for.

A heavy sort of realization sinks into him from above so that his shoulders slump with it, like he’s being held under a waterfall. Gallons of it pour over him, seeping into him and chilling him from his very core, of which seems strangely- hollow. He feels nothing but horribly numbing dread and it rocks him so much that he cannot move, not even when Hakyeon pulls away and assesses him calmly. Jaehwan now understands the calculating look in his eyes. He was being sized up.

What if it had been Sanghyuk?

The very thought of it makes him gag. Sanghyuk, here in Hakyeon’s living room instead of Jaehwan. Worst of all, Jaehwan no longer knows if Sanghyuk would be as disgusted as he is, if he would resist; maybe Sanghyuk wouldn’t care. Maybe he would work with Hakyeon and turn on Jaehwan. Maybe he was planning to do so all along. He feels so, so devastatingly guilty for imagining Sanghyuk like this but he can’t stop- images Sanghyuk smiling down at him as he makes the final scent in the concoction and pours it all over Jaehwan, leaving him there to-

Sanghyuk’s smile used to be a balm, for Jaehwan had fallen in love with him for his smile. Now, he is uncertain if the calm little feeling the back of his head is the same love or if it is acceptance. It lays there like the bottommost layer of a river, so out of reach that no matter how far he plunges his arms into the deep, he cannot touch it. It infuriates him.

Hakyeon rolls his shoulders back and reaches behind himself. In front of Jaehwan he produces an object, sleek and black. When Jaehwan recognizes it as his phone he reaches for it with no hesitation, eyes wild. Hakyeon lets him take it without protest.

“Take a few minutes to get yourself together. After that we’re going to get your stuff here.”

“Am I going to live here?” Jaehwan asks, unimpressed. Hakyeon nods like it’s obvious.

“Do you think I would risk staying at _Fantaisie_?” Hakyeon says with an edge of a scoff, “I’m not stupid. You either help me or I take the book myself, make it, and add your blood.”

“Why not just do that? _Why me_?”

“It’s easier to use you as an accomplice than it is to plan a raid on your damn store,” Hakyeon says with a scoff. “Sanghyuk-ah can run it by himself, I don’t care.”

The look he gives Hakyeon is nothing short of wounded- artfully misplaced but it gives him the result he desires. Hakyeon gazes at him with what seems to be pity, his head shaking minutely.

“I did my research, Jyani,” Hakyeon says. Jaehwan recoils at the nickname. This makes Hakyeon stare at him for a second before he fixes his face back into the same, slightly condescending smile from before. A car passes by from outside, the light from its reflecting windows bouncing around the room, until there is nothing but silence for a tense moment.

“I am fully aware that your least busy days are before you drop a new line. We timed well.”

 _We_. Jaehwan opens his mouth, and upon seeing the look in Hakyeon’s eyes, closes it. So despite the fact that Taekwoon is a cop, a _high ranking_ cop, Hakyeon’s counting him in on all of this. Before Jaehwan can assume the worst, Hakyeon speaks for himself. He looks nothing if not proud.

“Yes, Taekwoonie knows. It was actually his idea to start today.”

“And what if I call Sanghyuk?” Jaehwan asks. His voice grows quiet at the mention of Sanghyuk’s name, weak. As if he is physically unable to manifest the rolling tidal wave of emotion within him. Hakyeon notices, because of course he does. His grin is knowing and wide, and he turns away with a mocking noise of surprise, hand covering his mouth. His cat circles around him kindly and nuzzles into his legs, but Hakyeon only gives her a cooing noise of acknowledgement. He walks on.

“Then I’ll call Taekwoon.”

❁

The drive to Hakyeon and Taekwoon’s place is uneventful, mundane even, and it seems to be directly in spite of the reeling cloud of emotions in Sanghyuk’s head. He doesn’t even turn on the radio, and it’s not like he needs to; his fingers tap listlessly on the steering wheel in their own rhythm to fill the silence his heartbeat does not.

However, when he gets to the house he is surprised to find that neither car is in the driveway. He curses. Instinctively his hand reaches for his phone, the other idling the car by the curb so that he can triple check Jaehwan’s text. 

“ _At hakyeon's and somethings wrong. Feel unsafe please help._ ”

He bites his lip and tosses his phone on the back seat, looking to the top of his car. He just doesn’t understand. Jaehwan wouldn’t- he would never be able to _joke_ about this. Sanghyuk knows that much. Maybe it’s the lingering distrust from last night that makes him hesitate in shifting gears and reversing back down the road, his hands moving slowly and mechanically like they need to be oiled. Either way, as he starts towards his last hope in finding Jaehwan, all he can think about is Jaehwan, _Jaehwan_.

Jaehwan’s texts are never like this. He takes his damn time making sure every period is in place, and his characters aren’t jumbled together like Sanghyuk often writes. Almost every text from him is filled with copy paste emoticons and emojis, and it takes him five minutes to send a message that should honestly take thirty seconds. The deep-seated discomfort Sanghyuk feels whenever he sees this message… he can’t even describe it. He can feel the urgency. Jaehwan would never be caught dead typing like this unless something truly concerning was going on.

And truly concerning, this is. Unsafe at Hakyeon’s, of all places… Sanghyuk can’t quite wrap his head around it, but again, who is he to mistrust his mentor? 

Except he can. And he does. He has the book. Sanghyuk groans, head tipping forward so that it rests on the steering wheel at the next red light. Every damn time he thinks, his mind immediately jumps to Jaehwan owning the book. And every time he thinks about that, he involuntarily sees the overt panic in Jaehwan’s eyes, the disgust. It makes him so, so confused. He was making the love scent, too, which makes him doubly stumped; why would Jaehwan need it? Unless he’s planning to do some surely, highly illegal sales pitch or… he has someone in mind.

God.

A wholly different yet somehow familiar feeling encapsulates him for the rest of his ride. The prospect of Jaehwan having someone else to look to when he’s upset, to send cute texts to, to surprise with karaoke in the middle of the night… it makes his stomach roll. But with _what_? And why? He doesn’t want anyone else to take that place. He doesn’t want anyone to take _his place_.

It slams into him like a tidal wave. His place. He doesn’t want anyone to fill his place, the one he’s created with Jaehwan over the years, where their levels of comfort are so impossible to breach that it has not been possible for at least a year- up until yesterday. And the feeling… is it jealousy? It has to be jealousy. There is no other possible emotion to capture this much of him all at once. And the ardent desperation to make sure Jaehwan is safe? He still doesn’t know what that could be. He has a feeling he’s close to finding out, though.

His car rolls to a stop slowly, almost cautiously. Ginkgo trees tower over him when he shuts the door, and it sounds far too loud for the empty, back parking lot. Past the dumpster, glass waste, and extra beakers they keep in discrete boxes is the back door, and when he opens it a gust blows fallen leaves away like they beckon him forward. His copy of the book feels heavy in his left hand, his right holding his phone and feeling the wall for the light switch.

The lab erupts in a flicker of blinding, white light, and it takes him a moment to get a move on. The drawer where Sanghyuk had seen Jaehwan stash his book has been left precariously open, its contents threatening to spill out onto the vinyl flooring. Cautiously, he steps past the other chaos on Jaehwan’s work table (a few misshapen beakers and a half-empty bottle of cinnamon extract), and into the little hallway just behind the front desk. Fortunately they don’t work Sundays, so the shop is empty- at least at the front.

The stairs are empty as well, except for a duffel bag near the top. It’s zipped up so Sanghyuk can’t tell if it’s empty or not. He has half the mind to prod at it with his foot to see, but then he hears it- voices.

“...I don’t want that, you know how he feels about musky scents.”

Hakyeon. Sanghyuk’s heart skips a beat, his eyes wider than saucers. He freezes mid-step out of fear of making a single sound, his left hand pocketing his phone and gripping onto the wall. For balance or for comfort he’s not sure of. He is sure of the fact that the shadow looming closer, closer, closer still is Hakyeon’s; his shiny, unmarked shoes come into view just past the hallway, pristine in the hallway lighting. Nothing like the beaten-up Converse Jaehwan likes to wear on his off days. Sometimes, when the conditions are just right, Jaehwan looks like an average man instead of an up-and-coming perfumer. More than once Sanghyuk has imagined them as acquaintances, or mere co workers within the same office, or strangers passing by on the same train cart. Would they even spare each other a glance?

Sanghyuk hopes so. Jaehwan is anything but ordinary. Oh, the many times Sanghyuk has held himself back from touching Jaehwan, from tucking orange blossoms behind his ear as they fall around him like he’s created a barrier from nothing; as if he is a fairy, a sorcerer. Capable of creating magic from the tips of his fingers, he is; Sanghyuk does not know a better perfumer, none of his past professors nor classmates can compete to the genuinity in Jaehwan’s lithe hands, his eyes that spell out the deepest secrets of the universe. And he hadn’t realized until this very moment how utterly smitten he is, and it makes him reel.

What makes him reel even more, however, is when he looks up and finds not Hakyeon’s face peering down at him, but-

“...Jaehwan?”

He stands on the topmost step like a beacon, bathed in sweet gold from the lights overhead, a tiny golden hour in their hallway. Confusion pinches his features into a frown, and then it deepens with visible distress. He hates it. 

Sanghyuk doesn’t think. He drops the book with a _bang_ and runs forward, crushing Jaehwan into a tight hug. He doesn’t realize Jaehwan is gripping onto him with equal fervor until he hears Hakyeon again, this time far closer and much more distressed.

“Jaehwan-ah? Are you okay?”

Footsteps. Sanghyuk braces himself. He takes in a deep breath, pulling away from Jaehwan with one last squeeze, but Jaehwan doesn’t let him get far. Hands, clutching both of his in an iron grip, perhaps they are grounding in some way. Sanghyuk lets himself be held.

“You came.”

Jaehwan says it in a whisper, his voice cracking. He lets go of one of his hands seconds later. Fleeting touches upon Sanghyuk’s cheek make him smile, but even he knows it’s a little sad, a little tentative. Jaehwan’s hand is not as it strokes over his cheekbone, the bridge of his nose, and Sanghyuk actually thinks it’s going to happen. His eyes fall shut for just a moment and open halfway, locking with Jaehwan’s own unabashedly. Wretched, Jaehwan looks wretched and confused and remorseful. He leans forward.

Hakyeon materializes behind Jaehwan out of nowhere. The range of emotions on his face is purely comical: concern, shock, understanding, anger. They blend together seamlessly in one long gradient. Long enough for Sanghyuk to open his mouth, but not long enough for him to speak before Hakyeon, his voice scathing.

“Oh. Sanghyuk.”

Jaehwan jumps, gasping. Automatically, Sanghyuk pulls him to himself, but not so that Jaehwan’s back is to Hakyeon. He’s kind of awkwardly facing Sanghyuk and Hakyeon at the same time, but he doesn’t complain. It’s not like he really has any room to.

“Hey, Hakyeon-hyung.”

A laugh bubbles out of Hakyeon. He relaxes against the wall closest to them, a mere two or three steps higher. His arms cross and he quirks an eyebrow, all smooth and poised. Also a guise. If Sanghyuk looks hard enough he can see the very ardent fire in his eyes, his lips pulled into a thin, determined line.

“Funny how the only time you’ve managed to tack on the ‘hyung’ is now. Kind of a bad place to start.”

Sanghyuk blinks up at him, truly at a loss for words, “...okay?”

For some reason, this makes Hakyeon scowl. Irritably he uncrosses his arms, standing tall with his shoulders squared. That makes Sanghyuk roll his eyes; they all know he could take Hakyeon if this escalates further. By the way Hakyeon appears in general, he doubts a fight will arise; he looks far more disheveled than usual despite his movements remaining serene. His hair is tousled, eyes a little bloodshot, and complexion pale. Very out of character for him, the only other time Sanghyuk has seen him like this was when-

“Hey!”

Sanghyuk snaps out of it at the sound of Jaehwan’s urgent cry, and then he’s yanked out of Sanghyuk’s grip with an unbelievable amount of strength. He barely moves, but Jaehwan has been pinned to the wall with one of Hakyeon’s hands on his chest, the other one holding something long and cylindrical. Hakyeon turns to him at the same time Jaehwan does, their faces complete juxtapositions yet similar all at once. Whereas Hakyeon is grinning and Jaehwan is absolutely not, they both have a wild look to their eyes. Wild and determined versus utterly panicked. It makes anger seer under Sanghyuk’s skin, boiling his blood so that he takes a step forward, set on removing Jaehwan physically. But then Hakyeon raises his leg, and kicks.

His ears ring. His head feels light and heavy at the same time, his chest constricting. The pain in his shin becomes nothing compared to the pain in the rest of his body. His arms feel like they’re been through a dull wood chipper. They’re not decorated with sharp pains, but dull, horrible aches that are more than likely giant bruises.

It takes him what feels like hours to push himself onto all fours, and when he lifts his head he sees nothing for one long, grueling moment. In the time it takes his vision to clear, becoming less and less spotty, he concludes two things. Hakyeon had kicked him down at least twenty hardwood stairs, into the concrete wall behind him, and successfully given him a massive headache. He thinks he might taste blood. He doesn’t know. Nor does he care.

Standing is a feat on its own. He bites the mauled inside of his cheek (there’s _definitely_ blood) and braces one hand on the wall, putting all of his power into his straining thighs. The rest of his body feels like it’s been iced so long that he’s started to feel hot all over, and unimaginably sore. He breathes in deeply, exhales just as long, curses, and takes a few steps up. Wash, rinse, repeat. Realistically, he knows he shouldn’t be this battered from a fall like this. The other, normal part of his brain screams at him with _Hakyeon gave you a literal K.O_. Where Hakyeon harbors the strength for that Street Fighter-ass kick, Sanghyuk has no idea.

On his way up he grabs the book. No harm in it, right?

He can hear yelling, as well as struggling. Deeper into the hallway he feels something crunching under his shoes, and he sweeps broken glass away furtively. He thinks it’s all rather dramatic. There was no need for the demolished picture frames that line the walls on either side, like something out of a post-apocalyptic world. The one closest to the commotion is still swaying slightly. It’s of all six of them, celebrating Taekwoon’s promotion with karaoke. Perhaps he should feel more distraught, but the only thing he can register is bitterness. It burns like a cold fire under his skin, pumping him forward until he reaches the balcony.

He unlocks the screen door and steps outside as fast as he can. To his left, Jaehwan shoots to his feet. Sanghyuk turns to him, so, so ready to get Jaehwan out of there. Jaehwan beams at him. Then, he gasps.

“Sanghyuk-!”

If Sanghyuk thought being kicked down the stairs is painful, being stabbed is falling down the stairs times about a million. He looks down at his side and pushes his hand into the wound, almost in awe at how much blood gushes onto his fingers. The knife is no longer there, and before he knows it he’s kneeling.

It hurts. It _hurts_. It feels like being fried alive, and it radiates throughout his abdomen not unlike rippling waves. Tears blur his vision, and he has to blink them away. When he opens his eyes, he almost falls over.

“What a coincidence.”

Hakyeon grins at him at eye level. Sanghyuk wants to spit on him. He does, and it lands near the bottom of his chin, dripping lazily. Hakyeon merely blinks.

“That was rude,” he concludes. He stands with the grace of a leopard, and eyes him down like an unsightly trace of dirt. Unfavorable, but small and insignificant.

“Why,” he hears, and whips his head around to see Jaehwan, exactly where he’d been before. He’s also crying, and Sanghyuk wants nothing more than to wipe his eyes dry and hold him until they become nothing but a tangle of flesh and bone- neverending. “Hakyeon, why?”

“Why do you think?” Hakyeon says laughingly. He raises his hand and Sanghyuk grimaces. The dagger-switchblade, actually-is covered in deep red, sparkling like wine before the setting sun. He pays it no mind and sheathes it, turning fully to Sanghyuk once more. “I want the goddamn book.”

It’s pretty hard to think straight. He feels as if a battle is going on within his head- half of him urges him to sit and try to figure out what the hell is going on, and the other screams at him to fuck it all. Throw it all to the wind. He raises his free arm, still heavy with the book. He’s shaking. His heart pounds in his chest, his ears, his fingertips. He licks his lips and finds them to be dry. It’s now or never. Sanghyuk brings the book up to his chest, slightly in Hakyeon’s direction.

“You mean this book?”

And then, he turns. With all of his might he heaves the book up, up, and then watches with absolute satisfaction as it catapults off the edge of the balcony. The _slam_ it gives as it hits the concrete below makes him giddy, and he shudders for an entirely different reason. But he can’t stand, can’t move anymore. He slumps over onto his side (the un-stabbed one, thankfully), groaning. His ears ring, both with the sound of Hakyeon’s screaming voice and Jaehwan’s footsteps, rushing over to him.

“Sanghyuk! _Sanghyuk_ , oh my God,” Jaehwan babbles, and then sobs. Hands flutter over Sanghyuk’s arms, his back, but he can’t keep his eyes open for long enough to see Jaehwan, not even once. It’s not until Hakyeon stomps over to them does he remember, oh, yeah, there’s a weirdo, stabby piece of shit with them.

“Do you understand how valuable that is?!” he barks, and lifts his leg. Sanghyuk cringes. But- the hit never lands. Instead, he hears a great fall, and scrambles away from what appears to be Jaehwan tackling Hakyeon to the ground, hands flying.

“Shut up! Shut up, shut _up_ ,” Jaehwan cries. Sanghyuk forces himself to stay lucid. He finds even more satisfaction in the amount of punches Jaehwan lands, his legs straddling Hakyeon’s torso as he fights to break free. At Jaehwan’s side, Sanghyuk sees something catch in the waning sunlight- his phone. God. Fate could not have lined this up better. He has no hesitation as he reaches for the phone and dials the emergency number, the operator on the line answering immediately. Not even a minute later, they can hear sirens.

Hakyeon has gotten up by the time the cops storm onto the balcony. The thing he’d been holding falls before he exits, screaming profanities and sobbing. He steps in it, and bloody footprints follow his demise back down to the streets surrounding, where a small crowd of concerned residents has gathered. Sanghyuk looks behind him and sees a flash of bluish-grey hair, and smiles. Taekwoon. 

As they tear him away from the scene, Jaehwan finally faces him, and Sanghyuk cannot find any words in either of the languages he knows to describe him. He looks- _is_ -stunning. Tear stricken, flushed, pale, but glowing. His eyes are like miniature pools of embers, encapsulating the late afternoon sunshine as if he was made from it, within it. Sanghyuk caresses his cheek- slowly at first, then more firm when Jaehwan only smiles, gentle and encouraging.

“Hi,” Jaehwan breathes. Blissful, wonderful familiarity makes his heart soar. This is Jaehwan’s I’m-super-nervous-but-I-want-to-be-strong voice. Sanghyuk giggles.

“Hey,” he says back. Jaehwan sits down with him, scooting forward so that their hands lock. The throbbing in his side has lessened, somehow, as if Jaehwan is his balm. Or maybe he’s just getting used to it. He doesn’t really care which it is.

“When are the paramedics getting here?” Jaehwan asks worriedly. Sanghyuk waves his hand.

“In a few minutes. I’ll be okay.”

“Okay. I- I need to ask you something,” Jaehwan says. He begins to tremble, and Sanghyuk pulls him forward so that his head rests on his shoulder. Jaehwan gasps, but all in all, Sanghyuk had guessed correctly- he’d wanted contact. Jaehwan takes in a steadying breath.

“I don’t care about the- book,” he mumbles into Sanghyuk’s chest, “I never did. I also don’t care about you using scents, I’d be a hypocrite if I did. I’m just.”

He sighs. Sanghyuk nudges him so that they lock eyes again. Jaehwan’s are glassy, huge. Sanghyuk can’t breathe. He wants to kiss him.

“Have you ever used them on… me?”

God. Sanghyuk closes his eyes, trying to recall ever bringing his homemade scents into the store. He can only remember once, maybe twice, when he was fumbling and nervous, still not used to the industry. His friends at school had offered him a charisma scent a few times during oral presentations. Aside from that, not many other times of using the scents on himself strike him.

“I’m pretty sure I did when I first met you,” Sanghyuk confesses, and winces. “I’m sorry. I try my best to keep them separated from here.”

Jaehwan looks- bewildered? Astonished? Doubtful? Sanghyuk can’t really tell. _This is it_ , he sighs to himself, _this is when I lose him._

“Oh. Oh, okay,” Jaehwan nods. Sanghyuk sighs.

“I get it. I shouldn’t have, I’m really sorry-”

“I think, um, I’m kind of _inlovewithyou_.”

It’s said so fast that it takes Sanghyuk one, two, three seconds to process. But when he does, his eyes snap wide open and his stomach lurches. He moves to get up, but his wound protests immensely.

“What? You’re what?”

“Don’t make me say it again,” Jaehwan wails. He grabs Sanghyuk’s jaw with both of his hands, mindful of the dried blood on his chin. “Please. Please tell me you weren’t making me fall in love with you. I don’t know what I’ll do if I find out everything I’ve been feeling is a lie.”

Oh. _Oh_. It clicks into place like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Sanghyuk blinks externally, but internally he screams at himself for being a big, dumb, fucking _idiot_ . It all makes perfect sense now. _That’s_ why he was so betrayed. Sanghyuk doesn’t know what he would do if he found out Jaehwan has been using love scents on him, either. No wonder last night ended so terribly.

“Oh my God,” Sanghyuk breathes, and laughs. Jaehwan’s face falls. Sanghyuk rushes to continue.

“No! I mean, no, I haven’t been using the love scent on you.”

“Truthfully?” Jaehwan asks softly. Sanghyuk gushes.

“Of course not,” he confirms, “if I had, I’d be wondering if they could work on me, too.”

It takes a moment for the implication to sink in. When it does, Jaehwan’s eyes practically bug out of their sockets, lips parted.

“Sanghyuk-ah, what are you saying?”

Sanghyuk doesn’t answer. At least, not verbally. He moves gingerly, his hands taking their merry time up Jaehwan’s neck, the apples of his cheeks, to his dark hair, parted at the side so that it swoops cutely over his right eye. Dried blood maps his way but neither of them mind. He gives Jaehwan all of the time in the world to back out, to move, but he doesn’t. Before Sanghyuk closes his eyes, he makes sure to imprint this moment into his mind forever. The pores on Jaehwan’s nose, the twinkling light in his eyes, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, everything. _Everything_.

It’s with sirens blaring and cotton candy-pink clouds does Sanghyuk finally kiss Jaehwan, but none of it quite reaches them. And Sanghyuk wonders, as Jaehwan pulls away only to kiss him even deeper, what will become of them once the sun sets beyond the adjacent rooftops. Will they be washed away in white lights, or will they become prisms?

**Author's Note:**

> hyuk is ok don't worry!! just imagine they go to the hospital afterwards hehe  
> ty for reading! comments/kudos are very appreciated!
> 
> [twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/wwxphobic)


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